The Path Not Taken
by TheGirlWhoRemembers
Summary: My version of Season 3, written in the break between Seasons 2 and 3. Mac, Jack, Bozer, Riley and Matty deal with twists, turns, trials and tribulations. They save the world a couple times, kick bad guys' butts, make new friends and enemies, reunite with old ones, and discover carefully-hidden secrets, all as the Phoenix family grows both closer and larger.
1. D I Why?

AN: Hi everyone! This is earlier than I thought it would be, but I don't think there'll be any complaints there! The first section of this is directly lifted from my season finale episode tag, _Emergency Repairs._ If you've read that and want to get straight to the new stuff, just scroll down to the first scene on the Phoenix jet.

* * *

 **MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE**

 **(MACGYVER THE YOUNGER'S RESIDENCE)**

 **(SINCE THE DIY DOESN'T MAKE IT OBVIOUS)**

 **LA**

* * *

'Mac, come on, son! We got those amazing burgers you used to, like, write sonnets about when we were in the Sandbox! And we got pie, apple pie, your favourite! And Ri's just dropped in and she brought rocky road ice-cream, I know you can never resist that…'

Jack banged ineffectually on Mac's bedroom door, then tried to no avail to turn the doorknob.

(He knew that he'd never get through a door that Mac had locked, but he knew it was important to try. Important to show his partner that he was trying.)

There was a loud sound that sounded far too much like an explosion for Jack's liking, followed by his partner's voice, which sounded every inch like a hurt, sulking teenager's.

(Mac had had to grow up way too fast. Sometimes, Jack thought, that meant that he regressed from time to time, back to those stages of life he never really got to fully experience.)

'I'm not hungry!'

Bozer stuck his head into the hallway, still wearing his _Kiss the Cook_ apron, a questioning and very worried look on his face. Jack just shook his head, and Mac's best friend's shoulders slumped.

Jack turned back to Mac's resolutely sealed bedroom door, and banged twice more on it to ensure he got the blonde's attention, before calling through it again.

'Well, if you change your mind, there's plenty of grub!'

Mac didn't respond, but Jack assumed he'd heard him, and trudged back towards the kitchen, not having any appetite himself.

* * *

As they picked at their dinner, none of them really tasting it, despite the fact that Bozer's cooking was delicious, as usual, Jack, Matty, Bozer and Riley sat in silence.

Eventually, the hacker broke it, almost hesitantly. Sounding confessional, even, looking down at her plate, as if she couldn't quite meet their eyes.

'The Coltons gave me an offer to come work with them.' She looked up, and glanced at Jack, then Bozer, for the tiniest second, then down the corridor towards Mac's bedroom, from which loud clanking sounds and the occasional small explosion were still sounding out. 'It's…it's not easy for me and Billy, being so far apart…' She swallowed, looking down at her plate, then looked back up at the three of them. 'I'm thinking of taking it.'

There was silence for a long, long moment, as they all contemplated, processed, the events of the last 48 hours, and this latest bit of news on top of it.

Matty's eyes were sad, but there was something in there that seemed like acceptance. Like a blessing, almost.

Bozer looked shocked, almost shell-shocked, but at the same time, there was understanding in his eyes. Empathy. He got it.

Jack, however, just shook his head repeatedly. Vehemently. Firmly.

'No, no, you _can't,_ Ri.' He shook his head again. 'This…this family can't fall apart, not after everything we've been through together!' Jack thwacked his hand on the table. 'I won't let it!' He pointed at the hacker. 'You can't do this to us, Riles, not now, not ever!'

He looked at the young woman who was the closest thing to a daughter, to a child, he'd ever, ever had, something very hurt and betrayed in his eyes, then got up without a word and stormed towards the front door, as if intending to leave.

Bozer and Matty could only watch and exchange a glance as Riley, shocked and wounded and with, they swore, tears beginning to pool in her eyes, just stared at Jack, half getting up from her seat as if to follow him, seemingly unsure if she should scold him and yell at him for being so presumptuous and possessive and an _ass_ or just reach out and cry into his chest.

(Jack Dalton had a temper, they all knew that.)

(And he loved deeply, so, so deeply.)

(Loved Riley and Mac as if they were his own flesh and blood, been and was a better father to them than their own had ever been. Or ever would be.)

(They knew he could never bear to lose them.)

Jack had just laid a hand on the front door when the doorbell rang.

He opened the door, to find James MacGyver standing on the other side.

The two men stared at each other for a long, long moment, each seeing a mirror of their own emotions in the other's eyes.

Anger. Hurt. Betrayal. Pain.

Of the very worst kind.

Of the kind inflicted by those you trusted, you loved.

By your _family._

James MacGyver (Jack refused to think of him as Oversight or Sir, he did not deserve that respect, not after what he'd forced Mac into doing) looked absolutely, utterly furious. As if he'd scorch and salt the Earth below his enemies.

He also looked as if he'd been crying.

As if he might actually cry again.

Mac's father spoke softly, voice hoarse and with the most emotion Jack had ever heard from the man.

(And, he thought, probably ever would.)

'I need to speak to Angus. _Please.'_

There was a pleading, almost _begging_ note in his voice.

Something that Jack just knew had probably not graced the man's voice for years and years.

Jack stared into his eyes for a long, long moment again, and some modicum of understanding passed between them.

(Big boss or not, Jack would break that man without losing a wink of sleep if he hurt Mac again.)

(He had to make sure that he knew that.)

James MacGyver gave the tiniest, slightest of nods of acceptance, and Jack nodded back, then called out down the corridor towards his partner's room.

'Mac…you gotta come out, son. There's somebody who really, really, really needs to talk to you. And…trust me, brother…I think you _really_ wanna hear what he's got to say.'

There was silence and tension through the whole house for a long moment. Then, slowly, after several clicks and clacks and clinks, the door to Mac's bedroom slowly opened.

The blonde stepped out, hair wild, grease on his cheeks, his hands and his clothes, eyebrows slightly singed and eyes red as if he'd been crying, expression stony as he stared down the corridor at his father.

Jack just gestured a little awkwardly towards the dining room, where Matty was nudging Riley and Bozer out towards the deck.

'I'll just be outside toasting marshmallows…holler if you need me, brother.'

Mac tore his eyes away from his father for a moment to give Jack a grateful nod, and the elder MacGyver glanced between the two of them for the briefest of seconds.

(Mac swore he saw something akin to pain…or even jealousy…in there for a moment, then kicked himself internally.)

(He had to be imagining things. And if he wasn't, he couldn't trust what he saw anyway.)

(He couldn't trust this man.)

(Couldn't.)

James MacGyver held up his hands, seeming to have to put effort into making his expression open.

'I know you don't want to see me or talk to me, Angus. I know you don't trust me. And that you've resigned.' He swallowed. 'And…and I accept that.' He held out his phone, which had a video clip on it, ready to be played. 'But…there's something you need to know.'

With a little hesitation, but also probably far more curiosity than was good for him, Mac took his dad's phone and played the video.

* * *

Thirty seconds later, he looked up at his dad, tears welling in his eyes, shaking his head.

'No, no…it can't be true, Mom died of cancer!'

James MacGyver just shook his head, swallowing a lump in his own throat, and gestured at his phone.

'Walsh sent another file. Read it.'

Mac, fingers shaking, opened the file and read.

Or, more accurately, looked.

 _Aflatoxins are highly carcinogenic – that means cancer-causing – compounds produced by certain species of Aspergillus moulds._

 _This…this is a synthetic derivative that is 500 times more carcinogenic._

 _Guess KX7 isn't the first time Jonah Walsh has dabbled in organic chemistry for evil._

Tears welling in his eyes even as he did everything he could to force them back, anger coursing through his veins even as he tried to restrain it, Mac looked up at his father, who just spoke, eyes hard with grief and anger and vengeance.

'What do you say, son? One last mission?'

Mac nodded.

* * *

 **PHOENIX JET**

 **(THERE ARE PERKS TO BEING THE BIG BOSS)**

 **SOMEWHERE OVER SOUTHERN TEXAS**

 **ON-ROUTE TO MEXICO**

* * *

Mac stared at the paperclip in his hands, which had been re-shaped into that aflatoxin derivative that had killed his mother.

According to Jonah Walsh, anyway.

 _Yeah, I'm not sure if you should believe your dad's former partner who turned to the dark side when he claims that he murdered your mom, especially when he has a really, really good reason to try and lure you into a trap._

 _Namely, we and Jack destroyed a whole section of his boss's cocaine operation, and we all know he wouldn't have been happy about that._

 _And drug lords are not known for their mercy or understanding._

He looked up at his dad, who was sitting on the other end of the jet, staring into space.

'Do you believe him?'

His dad swallowed and nodded.

'He was my partner for thirteen years, Angus. I know when he's lying.'

Mac bit back the urge to point out that he'd been utterly blindsided by Walsh's betrayal, and _look what that had cost them._

He didn't trust his dad. He didn't really like him much either.

But he recognized that that was a hit far too far below the belt.

Still, there was something in his dad's voice that got the cogs in his head turning, made a suspicion start to grow.

(He didn't know this man anymore. He probably never had. He wasn't the best at reading people anyway…but something made Mac very, very sure that he'd reached the right conclusion.)

'You suspected, didn't you?'

He didn't need to specify _what._

James MacGyver turned away for a moment, seemingly not able to meet his son's eyes. He was silent for a beat, before giving a little nod and speaking.

'I thought I was being paranoid. Thought I was grasping for something, anything, because I couldn't accept how unfair it was, losing her, because it'd be easier to have someone to blame…'

He trailed off and fell silent. Mac shoved all of the thoughts, many of which were really unpleasant, that were floating around his brain ( _And you never thought to share this with me? Or the authorities? Or Matty and your other co-workers? I felt the exact same way, and when I voiced that – something you never did, by the way – you didn't comfort me, or reassure me that you felt the exact same way, you just left!)_ into a safe in his mind and locked it securely, before he pulled another paperclip from his pocket, beginning to shape it into an apple.

'It's a trap.'

His dad gave a snort, shooting him one of those glances that he so often did and always had, the _well, duh, of course_ look.

(Mac _really, really_ hoped that he didn't come across as so arrogant and condescending.)

(He was smarter than the vast majority of the population, and he knew it. That wasn't arrogance, that was just objective fact, and he knew it didn't make him better than anyone else, it just made him better at certain things.)

(Just like other people were better at other, certain things.)

(Bozer cooked better than Mac ever would and had a gift with the artistic that Mac simply lacked. Jack had better aim and was a superior football player by at least an order of magnitude. Matty's poker face was miles better than his and she was far better at keeping an eye on the big picture, and Riley was more stylish and way better with computers than Mac would ever be, for example.)

'We can't let Walsh get away with this.'

James's voice was hard, flinty. Cold, and burning with anger at the same time.

Mac just nodded in agreement, and they lapsed into a long and uncomfortable silence.

Eventually, James broke it, swallowing and speaking quietly. As if he was confessing a great sin. With guilt, the most guilt that Mac had ever heard in his father's voice and was convinced he would ever hear.

'You were right, son. It's my fault your mom's dead.'

There was something almost _broken_ in his voice, in his eyes, in his posture, but Mac couldn't quite bring himself to say anything in comfort.

It was, honestly, true.

Still, because it _did_ hurt, it _did_ tug at his heartstrings, to see the man in anguish (at least, Mac thought cynically – _seeming_ anguish, anyway, who knows what James MacGyver _actually_ thought, actually felt), Mac pulled a couple of the paperclips from his pocket and tossed them over to his father.

James caught them in his right hand, and wordlessly gave him a nod of thanks, and started unwinding one of them.

There was another long stretch of silence, this one ever-so-slightly, perhaps on the nanoscale, less uncomfortable than the earlier one.

Eventually, Mac broke it.

'You promised me answers.'

'I did.'

James spoke levelly, neutrally, factually. Almost guardedly.

Mac decided to ignore that fact (it wasn't worth getting worked up over, it wouldn't do him any good) and pressed on.

'You left. You didn't even say goodbye. All these years, you've been my boss, you've been steering the course of my life, and you never _once_ reached out. If not for Matty, I'd never have learned the truth.' He sought out his dad's eyes, holding his gaze, something harsh in his own eyes, pinning him down with the force of it. 'Was Walsh telling the truth?'

He didn't need to specify _when._

James just nodded once, and spoke bluntly, holding his son's gaze.

'It was easier, Angus. Easier to try and convince myself that I didn't have a son. Easier to not have to talk about you or think about you.'

Mac pushed down that not-so-little stab of hurt (What answer had he expected? What answer had he wanted? He didn't even know…), staring at his father's face for a very, very long time. Studying it.

He really, really wanted to believe everything his father had told him. Everything. All of it, every last bit.

Wanted to believe that it was, in the end, grief and anger and a desire to protect him and _many, many_ gross errors of judgement that had driven him away, driven him to stay away and then to stay so close and yet so far all these years.

But as much as he wanted to…he couldn't. He absolutely couldn't.

It would be phenomenally stupid, foolish and a gross error of judgement to rival his father's.

James MacGyver was a consummate liar. Mac was half-convinced that he'd never _actually_ known the man who'd sired him.

He wasn't even sure if his mother had known her husband, _really_ known her husband, and somehow, that stung even more than knowing that he might well have never really known the man himself.

'You say you tried to forget about me, but you kept tabs on me. You steered me towards this life.' His eyes hardened, shuttering to hide that newly-bleeding, still-very-raw wound across his psyche. 'I call BS.'

'Steering you into this life…I did that to keep you safe.' Mac looked at him incredulously, and his father continued, looking a tiny bit annoyed or almost even disappointed that Mac couldn't follow his thinking. Just a tiny bit. He _did_ seem to be trying very hard to not show it, at least. 'I've always known what kind of man you'd grow into, Angus. The kind that'd run towards danger to save others, instead of running away.' He spread his hands out, as if to say _isn't it obvious?_ 'This was the safest path for you; I could keep an eye on you.' He paused. 'At least, that's what I thought.'

Mac let out a snort of disbelief.

 _And in other news, it's -2_ _C in hell and flying pigs have been spotted over the Hollywood sign._

'Are you admitting you were _wrong_?'

'Well, I'm not saying I did it right.' A very sardonic look crossed Mac's face. That was probably about as good as he was ever going to get when it came to his dad admitting he was _wrong_. James was silent for a beat, before he continued, looking down at the paperclip he was absent-mindedly re-shaping, then back up at Mac. 'For quite a while, at first…it wasn't so much your granddad helping me keep tabs on you as much as…him force-feeding me updates on you. Angus got kicked out of the Boy Scouts, Angus won his fifth Science Fair, Bozer made Angus a delicious not-birthday cake, Angus got eighteen holes-in-one in a game of mini-golf…'

Mac swallowed, a sudden rush of deep love and affection, tinged with grief, for the man who'd been his only real father-figure (excepting perhaps Mr Ericson) for far too many years.

 _('Sometimes a man like your dad can get so focussed on what he thinks is important that he completely misses out on what really is important. When your old man realizes that, he'll be back.')_

(His grandfather had been right about the first bit. He'd been wrong about the second, but he'd at least made sure to constantly remind his father about what was _really_ important.)

Without him having to think about it, the paperclip in his hands took the shape of his Swiss Army knife, his grandfather's Swiss Army knife (well, technically, the identical replacement Jack had given him, but still…).

'So he knew?' James just nodded. 'Did Mom?' Another nod. 'So everyone knew but me?'

Mac couldn't help but let some of the hurt bleed into his voice, even as he knew it was utterly irrational.

His dad shot him a look that said, _don't be ridiculous, Angus._

'You were a _kid_.' His voice softened a little. 'On her deathbed, your mom made me promise that I'd tell you the truth when you were old enough.'

'Well, you broke that one.'

'We didn't exactly _define_ old enough…'

It was Mac's turn to shoot his dad a _don't be ridiculous_ look, and the older man just gave a tiny little nod in acknowledgement, something that Mac would describe as regret in his eyes.

(Though whether it was genuine, he couldn't quite be sure. If he had to bet, though, he'd say yes.)

There was silence for a moment, slightly less awkward again, perhaps on the microscale this time, before James continued.

'And your mom and grandpa weren't supposed to know either, but…' He clasped his hands together for a second, then pulled his fingers apart and picked up another paperclip, beginning to unwind it. 'I've never told you the story of how I met your mom. Or…' He pulled out his Swiss Army knife. '…why I started carrying this around.' He looked over at his son. 'I'm probably seventeen years too late, but…'

'Better late than never.'

Mac's words were half-bitter, and half-accepting, with a more-than-healthy note of curiosity in them.

'Walsh and I had been partners for just under a year at this point. An old Army buddy of your grandpa's, who'd become very senior at the Pentagon, had stumbled upon a mole. He didn't know which of his co-workers he could trust, but he knew he could trust your granddad, so he went to him.' A wry little smile, one very much like the one Mac had seen when he'd caught his own reflection in some reflective surface many a time, appeared on his face. It made him seem younger, and kinder. Softer. More like the man Mac remembered from when he was very, very young, when his mother had been hale and hearty. 'Of course, Walsh and I were hunting the mole at the same time, and we all wound up in a scrape together.' The way he said scrape made it clear that it was much, much more than a scrape. 'Your grandpa, Walsh and I got out of it because of two things. A, a very handy habit that your granddad and his buddy had picked up when they were serving together.' He held up his Swiss Army knife, and Mac would have sworn right at that moment on all the laws of physics that his dad's eyes filled with emotion (sadness, affection, admiration…). 'B, the corner office and playing politics hadn't changed old Angus McLafferty in the slightest.'

' _That's_ why you and Mom named me Angus?'

 _A deceased old friend of my grandfather's, a hero who gave his life for the lives of three others…that is an awful lot better than being named after a hamburger, like Donnie Sandoz used to insist I was._

 _Unfortunately, I could never actually prove him wrong._

 _In fact, during some moments that I'm admittedly not too proud of, I used to think that my dad might have named me after a hamburger because he was, A, completely crazy, or B, was doing some ridiculous and highly unethical social experiment on me._

 _Those moments never lasted too long, because then I remembered that my mom would have never, ever allowed him to get away with that._

James just nodded.

'If not for him and his sacrifice, you'd never have been born. For several reasons.' He paused, and for a moment, there was something very, very, very soft in his eyes, something that Mac could recall seeing there whenever his dad had gotten home from one of his 'business trips' and laid eyes on his mom. 'After debrief, Walsh and I dropped your grandpa back to his place. His daughter was waiting on the front porch, and when she saw him, she ran over and hugged her dad with as much love as I'd ever seen.' Something simultaneously very wry and very affectionate, loving, tinged with deep-seated grief and just a touch of anger crossed James's face. 'And then she started yelling at Walsh and I for bringing him home bruised and a little cut up…' Mac was as sure as he could be that that was an understatement. '…since he wasn't a spring chicken anymore.' James's little smile widened, as he lost himself further in the memory. 'When I dared to argue with her, she slapped me…' Mac's eyes widened, and his dad actually made a noise that was almost a chuckle. 'I probably deserved that…before inviting us in for the best apple pie I'd ever eaten as thanks for bringing her dad home alive.' Mac, too, smiled. His mother's apple pie was legendary. Unfortunately, her secret recipe had died with her. All of his intermittent attempts to replicate it with the aid of Bozer over the years had never _quite_ managed to nail it. 'And _then_ she had the nerve to tell me that I'd gotten the absolute configuration of one of the stereocentres in macelignan wrong.'

Mac's smile widened.

 _Macelignan is a compound found in nutmeg, which was definitely one of the spices in Mom's apple pie._

 _I am completely unsurprised that Mom knew its structure, down to the absolute configuration of the stereocentres._

 _I am also completely unsurprised that she'd correct Dad – much more nicely than Dad would have corrected someone – if he got it wrong._

 _Yeah, it is really not surprising that I turned out the way I did._

James's smile widened a little too, before his expression simultaneously grew hard and cruel and burning with grief and anger and the desire for vengeance, as well as a little softer, affectionate.

'A few months later, when I got dosed with sodium thiopental, I said to Jonah, that if by some miracle, she'd have me, that she was the woman I was going to marry.' He looked into the distance, into his memories, for a moment, before he focused back on Mac. 'Angus, I wasn't all that sure that I'd want the whole wife, kids, white picket fence when I was about your age. I had all these projects and ideas and there was work…' He shrugged. 'When I was recruited, I thought I could keep family and work separate, abstractly, but…there was never a woman who made me actually want to try it until I met your mom.'

Part of Mac told himself to absolutely not trust a word his father was saying.

He was a stranger to him, really.

A stranger who was a consummate liar. Clearly talented at manipulating people. And this was one of the oldest tricks in the book.

But…for this last twenty minutes or so…the man in front of him hadn't quite seemed like a stranger.

He hadn't seemed like the dad he'd remembered, either, but Mac was completely certain that that man had never quite been who James MacGyver truly was either.

At least, not _all_ of James MacGyver.

A facet, perhaps, maybe even the dominant facet, the truly important facet (at least, his grandfather would have said that).

But a facet.

Maybe…maybe this was the man that his father truly was now.

After everything.

Maybe.

Just maybe.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…I don't know what to think, baby!' Bozer paced through the thankfully empty (well, except for Sparky) lab, talking to Leanna over video call on his phone. 'Mac's quitting and you're joining, and I don't know if that's a net loss or gain! And Riley's saying she might be resigning to go work for the Coltons…Heck, I don't know if I even wanna work at a Phoenix with no Mac and Riley! It's just not gonna be the same! I don't know if I can do it…'

On the phone, Leanna stared at him, disbelieving and hurt.

'Bozer, I know Mac's your best friend and you and Riley are really close, and I'd never want to get between you guys, but-'

'They're not just my friends, they're more than that! Mac's my BFF. We're _family_. And you can't just let your family resign super-dramatically for super-good reasons without seriously thinking about following their lead-'

'Bozer, this is about _us._ Our future. _Together._ ' Leanna's voice was very clearly hurt and angry, a little cold with it, too. 'You have to think about _us_ too. A lot more than you've clearly been doing.'

And she hung up, abruptly.

Bozer blinked at his phone, shocked and stunned and hurting too.

'I am no expert on interpersonal relationships, particularly of the romantic kind, Mr Bozer. But I think you have really screwed up.'

Bozer glared at Sparky, and half-heartedly lobbed a rag at the robot.

'Oh, shut up, you.'

* * *

 **ACCOUNTANTS' OFFICE**

 **(AT LEAST, THAT'S WHAT THE SIGN OUTSIDE SAYS)**

 **MEXICO CITY**

 **MEXICO**

* * *

Mac crossed his arms as James attempted to get through the heavily-encrypted files on the computer of the boss of the 'accountants'. He glanced around, as several of the subdued and secured cartel members began to twitch, then looked back at his dad, gesturing with his head to the file that he was trying to crack (unsuccessfully).

'Send them to Riley. She'll get into them much, much faster than you can.'

James didn't turn around, but Mac could already see the look on his face in his mind's eye anyway, lips pursing slightly, eyes narrowing ever-so-slightly, clearly _not_ keen to ask for help.

'This is a family matter.'

'Riley _is_ family.'

(James was well aware that interpersonal interaction was not his strongest suit. But the implicit _unlike someone_ was very, very clear to him.)

(He supposed the fact that his son hadn't made it _explicit_ meant that they might be making some progress.)

(Which honestly, might be more than he deserved.)

(His son might be furious with him, might not trust him or even like him, but he still extended him more than he deserved.)

(He got that from Ellen.)

James gave a nod that was a little more than perfunctory.

'Alright. Call her.'

* * *

'Hey, Mac. What do you need?'

Riley completely ignored James, even though they were all well aware that she knew he was Oversight.

(Riley firmly believed that Mac had the right to know the truth about his father.)

(She also firmly believed that Mac – and Mac alone – had the right to determine what kind of relationship he'd have with the man, if any at all.)

(She'd take her cues from him. Given what had transpired over the last 48 hours, James MacGyver – no matter if he was an eccentric inventor who'd done nothing but fish the backwoods of Montana for the last seventeen years, Oversight or the President of the USA – was getting the cold shoulder from her.)

'We're sending you some files; we need you to get through the encryption…'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Jack gave a half-yelp as Matty walked into the men's room, closing the door firmly behind her and turning the lock.

(All doors at the Phoenix locked from the inside, just in case.)

'Matty, this is the little boys' room! Little girls' is next door!'

Matty just crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at him.

'You think I can't tell the difference, Jack?'

They lapsed into silence for a moment, Jack resting his hands on the edge of the sink, staring at his reflection and the reflection of the top of his boss's head in the mirror.

'You know, if you hadn't started leaving those breadcrumbs for our boy, _this_ wouldn't all be happening right now.'

He didn't need to specify what he meant by _this._

He'd made it very clear the night before.

Besides, that hurt and pain and fear and even those notes of betrayal in his eyes made it so obvious, especially to a master interrogator like Matty, who'd known Jack for so long.

'Can you really blame me for giving Mac the truth he's wanted for seventeen years?' Her voice was gentler than Jack would have expected. (He probably should stop being so surprised by Matty the Hun's softer side.) Jack made no verbal response, just huffed out a breath and lowered his head to stare at the drain for a moment, which was, to Matty, just as good as an answer. She reached out and put a hand on his arm. 'We are a _family_ , Jack. Even if Mac really does quit, even if Riley goes to work for the Coltons, we are a _family._ Those ties are stronger than our jobs, stronger than convenience.'

Jack turned his head a little to stare into her eyes for a long, long moment, and she could see that he saw the truth of her words. Matty patted his arm again, and Jack gave a little smile and a nod in gratefulness.

Then, Matty removed her arm and let out a sigh.

'When I became Director, I was worried about Mac.' Jack was instantly listening very, very intently. There was something confessional, laid bare, in Matty's voice, and while he knew that Matty always did everything for a reason, and she always tried to protect their family, she _didn't_ often explain her motivations. 'I worried that he was just like his dad, or would become his dad. As great a man as he is, he's…'

A very sardonic look crossed Jack's face, mixed with a healthy dose of protective anger.

'Not the best of men, is he?'

Matty just nodded, a very similar look on her face.

'He's made a lot of mistakes. He has a lot of regrets.' Jack wasn't _completely_ sold on that (he was pretty sure that as much as he regretted the outcome, a good chunk of James MacGyver was still convinced he'd done the right thing), but he supposed Matty did know the man far better than he did. 'I saw a lot of similarities.'

'So you tested him?' Matty gave a little nod, and Jack nodded, having guessed as much already. Then, he glanced down at his boss. 'And now you've gotten to know him, you see the differences.'

She nodded again, a soft little smile, a fond smile, growing on her face, before her expression grew more serious again.

'They might be the only two people in the world who can do what they do.' She glanced up at Jack, nodded at his belt, where his weapon was often strapped. Despite the fact that she'd seen his father pull off seemingly impossible improvisations time after time (had known that the elder MacGyver wasn't lucky, he was good), she'd always known, from the moment she'd laid eyes on him, that Mac was _not_ his father. She'd had to put him and his skills to the test (check that he wasn't lucky, but good), in addition to testing his character. 'But even James carries.'

* * *

 **ROOFTOP OVERLOOKING NONDESCRIPT WAREHOUSE**

 **(SUSPICIOUSLY NONDESCRIPT WAREHOUSE)**

 **MEXICO CITY**

 **MEXICO**

* * *

Mac handed the improvised binoculars they'd put together to his father.

'Definitely a trap.'

'What else do we have to assume?'

Mac just shot James a _look._

 _Look, I'm a firm believer in lifelong learning. I also know that I still have lots and lots to learn – I can't know everything, after all, as much as I might try._

 _But I am not a kid learning long division or redox reactions or calculus anymore._

 _I am also not a newbie agent._

 _And you can definitely teach without being…well, a condescending ass._

 _Mom did it._

 _Mr Ericson did it._

 _I do my best._

 _Pretty sure he doesn't even try._

The older man just stared right back at him, quirking his brow ever-so-slightly, and Mac rolled his eyes and answered, not bothering to put any effort into keep the snark out of his voice.

'That Walsh knows we're here and casing the place, and there's a good chance he knows we're casing it from here.'

His dad nodded, satisfied, then spoke.

'Then how are we going to, A, avoid his trap, and B, catch him in our own?' He paused, and actually looked a little bit sheepish. Just a little bit. A _very_ little bit. 'I'm not testing you, I want your opinion.'

Mac turned his head and looked very seriously at him, putting a substantial effort into making sure _he_ didn't come across as didactic and condescending.

(It wasn't the easiest, to be fair to his dad.)

'I get it's probably not easy for you to adapt to the fact that I'm not ten anymore. Even Jack's had trouble with Riley from time to time. But you _need_ to stop treating me like a child or a newbie agent. 'Cause I'm neither.'

'You can still learn.'

'You can _always_ still learn. But it doesn't have to be in the way you've been doing it.'

His dad didn't seem quite convinced, but he seemed to be considering it anyway, which Mac counted as a win.

The two of them lapsed into silence (which seemed just a little less uncomfortable than the last one, yet again), before James spoke.

'Remember that time when you and your grandpa pranked me to cheer up your mom when she was going through chemo?'

A very wry, mischievous little smile that tugged at James MacGyver's very hardened heartstrings and reminded him of his little boy before he'd gotten so big crossed Mac's face

'Which time?'

James shot him a _look._

'You _know_ which time.'

Mac gave a little smirk that was a tiny bit sheepish and nodded.

'Yeah.' He gestured down towards the street. 'I'll get the tomatoes, you get the feathers.'

* * *

 **TACO STAND**

 **MEXICO CITY**

 **MEXICO**

* * *

The very furious taco vendor ran through the alleyway onto the main street, which was populated with many other vendors and customers.

'Some gringo stole all my tomatoes!'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

About half an hour after she'd finished decrypting the files for Mac (and his dad, but she'd done it for Mac), Jack walked into the little room that Riley had commandeered.

'Hey, Ri.' He rubbed the back of his neck. 'I owe you an apology. You know, for losing it last night. We'd miss you like mad, Riles, but if it's gonna make you happier, you gotta do what you gotta do.'

Riley looked up at him and pursed her lips.

'I get it, we're family and family sticks together…but you _really_ overreacted.' Jack nodded ruefully, and she got up with a fond little smile and held her arms out for a hug, which Jack happily obliged. She tucked her head over his shoulder, going up onto her toes to do so. 'I thought you were a deadbeat who wouldn't answer the phone, and we didn't talk for years…but even then, you were still the closest thing to a dad I ever had, Jack.' He squeezed her a little tighter. 'A couple thousand miles and a career change isn't going to change that.' Head tucked over her shoulder, Jack smiled, reassured, and after a moment's silence, Riley continued, voice more uncertain, hesitant, thoughtful. 'Besides…I haven't decided yet.'

Jack pulled back, resting his hands on Riley's shoulders, and looking straight into her eyes.

'If you wanna talk about it, I'm here, Ri.' He puffed his chest out. 'Always plenty of Jack-wisdom to go around, on any topic you want, especially for you, kiddo.'

Her smile widened.

'I know.'

* * *

 **SUSPICIOUSLY NONDESCRIPT WAREHOUSE**

 **MEXICO CITY**

 **MEXICO**

* * *

Jonah Walsh held out a gun in each hand, one trained on each of the two men in front of him, and grinned.

Around him, no fewer than eight of his men were completely out cold or twitching and groaning slightly (he'd expected no less from the MacGyvers), but he had the father-son dynamic duo _exactly_ where he wanted them.

Or so he thought.

James, a little smirk appearing on his face, a reminder of the man that had been Jonah's best friend (especially the man he'd grown into after he'd met Ellen – mostly serious, still with that coldness to him, but so much warmer than when they'd first been partnered and definitely more fun), just raised an eyebrow.

'I've told you at least 326 times, Walsh, look up.'

The younger MacGyver, without so much as having to glance at his father, pressed down on something in his pocket, and Walsh found his vision suddenly obscured as something that smelled like tomatoes and felt ticklish at the same time landed on him.

* * *

As his father moved to throw the first punch, timing it perfectly so that he struck Walsh mere milliseconds after he was coated with their trap's rather unpleasant (and very annoying and distracting) contents, Mac shifted his position, mentally and largely unconsciously calculating the best move to make.

As he swept out a leg to trip Walsh, he noted, also largely unconsciously, in the back of his mind, that even though Mac really didn't like him much and really didn't trust him either, he and his dad _did_ make a really good team.

He wasn't quite sure what to make of that.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Riley and Jill, both holding Tupperware containers (they were going to the breakroom for lunch – Riley was bringing her rig with her, of course, just in case Mac needed her for anything else), passed by the lab, and wordlessly, by simple, silent agreement, the two young women walked in to see if Bozer could be prised from what they assumed had to be a long chat with Leanna full of ludicrous sappiness that'd make Riley want to vomit or a really time-consuming, concentration-intense project so that he could distract himself from the upheaval surrounding them.

What they found was neither of those.

Instead, Bozer was sitting in front of one of his prosthesis projects, which had several pink spots on it that they were quite sure were definitely not meant to be there. There was a dripping paintbrush in his hand, and he was monologuing to Sparky, who seemed to be turned off anyway.

'…why does love have to hurt so much?' He shot Sparky a look. 'Well, of course you wouldn't understand, you hunk of scrap! Your processor can't handle those feelings and all!' Bozer jabbed at his chest, over his heart. 'Well, my processor isn't doing so well right now either!'

Riley and Jill just exchanged a glance, full of exasperated fondness with the tiniest touch of amusement and worry, all at once.

'Bozer?'

'Do you wanna talk to someone who can actually talk back and can process emotions?'

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Jack and Matty walked past the Phoenix breakroom on their way to the war room.

The breakroom was empty, save for three people.

In the corner, Riley sat next to Bozer, while Jill sat opposite them. Bozer looked very morose, his shoulders slumped, and Jill was watching him with sympathy, while Riley patted his shoulder gently, before pulling him into a side-hug.

Jack and Matty just exchanged a glance, full of meaning and concern.

* * *

 **SUSPICIOUSLY NONDESCRIPT WAREHOUSE**

 **MEXICO CITY**

 **MEXICO**

* * *

Mac quickly and efficiently secured Walsh's wrists with the man's belt, before, just to be sure, tying the man's ankles together too with his own belt.

His father had his gun levelled at Walsh, eyes cold and harsh.

Neither of them were taking any chances, even if Walsh was probably concussed and only mostly-conscious, as well as sporting what was probably badly-bruised ribs and several cuts, bruises and a bullet graze.

James MacGyver quickly visually inspected Walsh's bindings and nodded once in approval, as Mac got up to stand by his father.

Then, James leaned forward and reached down, seizing Walsh's collar and pulling him to his feet…before placing the muzzle of his gun on the side of his former partner's head.

'Dad, what are you-'

'He killed my wife, Angus.'

Each and every word was cleanly, coldly, enunciated. There was nothing but ice-cold fury in his voice. Seething fury. Fury and anger that'd built and festered for years and years and years.

Vengeful fury.

 _Murderous_ fury.

Walsh began to laugh, in a way that really, really reminded Mac of someone.

Someone who'd gone after his family, just like Walsh had.

Someone who had, however, thankfully, not succeeded, unlike Walsh.

'Oh, Jimmy, you really gonna be able to do it? Kill your partner of thirteen years in cold blood? After all we've been through together-'

James drove the muzzle a little harder into the other man's forehead, eyes hardening further, more of that barely-leashed fury building in his voice.

'After everything you've done…in a heartbeat.'

His finger tightened slightly on the trigger, and Mac flung out a hand, glancing between the two men for a moment, before making eye contact with his father.

James's eyes slid away from his son's.

'You…you said you were going to put him in prison!'

'That was _before._ ' He didn't need to specify before _what._ 'Prison's too good for him, Angus.' The fury in his voice grew, as if it was starting to break free of its leash. 'He killed your mom!'

An answering flare of anger swelled in Mac again, but he caught it, reminded himself very firmly that as tempting as it was to let his father kill Walsh, that was not the kind of man that he was.

(And it wasn't the kind of man that his father was either, said a voice in his head that stubbornly refused to be silent, stubbornly refused to bow to the arguments that the other voices in his head presented – he probably had never known his father anyway, not truly, and besides, God knows how the man had changed in their years apart...)

'I know!' He took two deep breaths. 'But…but that doesn't mean we should kill him. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.' Mac swallowed, voice growing a little rougher, a little hoarser with emotion. 'And Mom wouldn't…Mom wouldn't want it to be that way.'

Mac had only known his mother for five years of his life. He only truly remembered about two and a half of those.

But he knew, just as surely as he knew the Laws of Thermodynamics or the square root of 900, that Ellen MacGyver would not want her husband or her son to become cold-blooded murderers to avenge her. In her name.

James MacGyver didn't take his eyes off Walsh. He held the other man's gaze for a long, long moment, as Walsh stared back, challenging him, _taunting_ him, to do it. To pull the trigger.

He didn't remove the gun from his former partner's head.

Eventually, he spoke.

'You are alive for one reason, Jonah. My son is a better man than either of us will ever be.'

And with that, he removed the muzzle of his gun from Walsh's head, and brought the butt down on his temple instead, knocking him out cleanly, before flinging the man to the ground, looking very tempted to spit on his unconscious form.

Then, he finally, finally met Mac's eyes.

Father and son stared at each other for a long, long moment.

Finally, James gave his son a single nod.

A nod that really, really seemed to Mac (probably against his better judgement) to say, _I'm proud of you, son._

Or, maybe, even, _thank you._

Mac swallowed, processing, as his father turned away and pulled out his phone.

'Webber, we need ex-fil…'

* * *

 **PHOENIX JET**

 **SOMEWHERE OVER THE GULF OF CALIFORNIA**

 **ON-ROUTE TO LA**

* * *

Mac toyed with the paperclip in his hands, which was rapidly taking the shape of a pie.

(In his mind, it was an apple pie, of course.)

(There were several others already scattered around his seat, in shapes ranging from an eye, to a set of scales, to a computer, to a watch – a very particular watch – and a phoenix.)

His dad looked up from where he was staring at Walsh, who was stubbornly silent.

(He wouldn't be for long, James knew. They'd get every useful drop of intel out of him. He and Matty, between the two of them, could make just about anyone sing like a canary.)

(They weren't as good as Samantha Cage, but they were pretty damn close.)

(And James was really, really looking forward to breaking his former partner.)

Eventually, James tore his eyes away from the man (the _murderer,_ a voice in his head insisted vehemently), and looked over at his son instead, marshalling his thoughts into order.

'You're a great man, Angus.' Mac looked up at him, expression inscrutable to James. That made the voice in his head that sounded just like Ellen start scolding him even more fiercely than she'd had the day they'd met. A lifetime working in his line of work had made him talented at reading people, even though that'd never been something that'd come naturally to him. His son's expression should be an open book to him, but it wasn't. Not anymore. 'You get that from me.'

Mac snorted derisively.

 _Yup, just as arrogant as I remember._

 _I admit, I think I do come across as arrogant sometimes. Sometimes, I forget to, well, I guess, filter things to make them suitable for public consumption, as my granddad used to put it._

 _But I really hope I'm nowhere near that bad._

He opened his mouth to make a snappy retort, but his father held up a hand to stay him, and continued, voice growing softer, sadder and prouder, all at once.

'But you're a good man in a way that I'll never be.' He gestured towards Walsh, who was watching with great interest and chuckles that both MacGyvers ignored. 'You get that from your mom and your granddad.' James paused and swallowed. 'You turned out a better man because I left.'

Mac stared at his father, expression incredulous, and gave a snort.

 _That is, pardon my language, utter crap._

He'd grown up essentially an orphan because his dad left, and before that, the man had been emotionally distant for years.

He was not convinced that that'd been worth it, even if it had made him a 'better' man.

Still, his mom had seen something in his dad, something worth loving with all her heart, something that'd made her sure that he was her right one.

And Matty saw something in his dad too. Something worth trusting.

(He knew Matty could deal with and accept the greys and hard decisions and shadows and lies of their lives far better than he could, but he also knew she wouldn't, couldn't, work for someone for so long that she didn't trust either.)

He trusted both of them, trusted their judgement, even if, sometimes, he'd really, really questioned his mother's choice of husband, and he'd doubted Matty more than once.

He didn't really have a proper response to his father's words, and besides, he was pretty sure his expression said it all, and he wasn't quite comfortable looking the man in the eyes (there was something profoundly sad and regretful and even guilty in there that Mac didn't want to see right now), so, instead, turned to Walsh and asked the question that'd been bugging him (one of many, admittedly) since his dad had explained the purpose of that Chinese takeout menu to him.

'You devoted your life to peace and saving lives. You were partners for thirteen years. You were best friends. _Why?_ '

Walsh chuckled, but it was a surprisingly bitter sound.

'I'll answer that one 'cause you're the one asking, Mini-Mac.' He gestured to James with his chin. 'You were so lucky. You had everything, Jimmy. _Everything._ This kind, loving, beautiful spitfire of a wife, a brilliant little boy who idolized you, and you didn't know it. Never appreciated it the way you should have. How many times did I catch you in the labs late in the evening, when you should've been home with your family? How many times did we all tell you to take a day or two or three off, to help Ellen plan your wedding, or take a longer honeymoon, or fuss over her when Angus was due any day, or so you could be there for his first day of school? And how many times did you refuse, 'cause you said you had a job to do?'

James actually jumped out of his seat, and almost lunged at Walsh, but managed to stop himself.

'I was trying to make the world a safer place! For them!'

He sounded reasonably sure of himself.

(Despite the fact that his wife had been murdered, and he and his son had been estranged for more than seventeen years, and Mac was still pissed at him, didn't trust him anymore and didn't even like him much either…)

Mac swallowed and looked away from the two former partners.

His dad _really_ did not have a good grasp of what was really important in life. His grandfather really had been almost-always right.

On the other hand…he understood his dad's logic and feelings on the matter far better than made him comfortable.

Walsh shook his head, jealousy and bitterness clear in his eyes.

'So, Jimmy, I thought to myself…at least I could have plenty of dough.' He looked up at him, a dark smirk on his face. 'You know how much your enemies would pay to hurt you in the worst way possible?'

Mac felt a surge of anger course through him. For one terrible, awful moment, he _really, really_ wanted to wrap his hands around Walsh's throat and keep squeezing until…but he dug his nails into his palms and took deep breaths, trying to keep his posture and expression as normal as possible, and it passed.

He glanced over at his father, thinking that he'd see the same anger reflected there, that burning rage, wondering if he'd have to stop him from shooting Walsh through the eyes point-blank again (as unwise as it was to shoot a gun on a plane, you _could_ do it safely if you really knew what you were doing…and he didn't doubt James MacGyver did), and wondering if he'd actually be able to.

He was surprised.

There was anger there, but his dad's eyes were mostly filled with _pain._ Longing. Regret.

And _guilt._

Suddenly, James MacGyver seemed a lot less sure of himself.

As if he was, perhaps, re-evaluating every decision he'd ever made.

Something about that look made Mac start re-evaluating his own decisions.

Namely, one very specific decision.

(He knew that was probably a terrible idea.)

(But he couldn't help it.)

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Jack pulled him into a bear hug as soon as he saw him, one so tight that Mac was half-convinced he cracked a rib or two.

'I am so, so sorry, brother.'

As soon as Jack let go, Mac found himself enveloped in Bozer's arms.

'Soon as we get home, bro, I'm gonna get that Jackson family secret recipe tomato soup on for you. With plenty of grilled cheese, of course. We gotta do it right!'

Mac gave a wan little smile over his best friend's shoulder.

'Thanks, Boze.'

Riley hugged him next, not for quite as long as Jack or Bozer had, but just as tightly.

'If you want to talk, Mac, I'm always here.'

When he let go of the hacker, Matty simply held her arms up, and Mac crouched down and hugged her too.

She was silent, simply stroking the hair at the back of his head in a way that was very, very similar to how his mom had done it when he was a little kid.

It all helped.

They all had slightly different methods of comfort, but his family always knew how to make him feel just that little bit better.

* * *

Bozer walked into the lab, to find Leanna standing there, looking uncharacteristically awkward.

The two of them spoke at once, over each other.

'I'm sorry.'

'I am so sorry.'

There was an awkward, somewhat tense, silence for a moment, before Bozer gestured at Leanna, still awkwardly.

'Uh, ladies first.'

Leanna bit her lip.

'I'm sorry, Bozer. Mac's your family, him quitting can't be easy for you…'

Bozer nodded.

'Yeah. And I'm sorry too, Leanna.' He reached out for her hand, hesitantly, and after a moment, she took it. 'We're…you and me, we're in this for the long haul, so I gotta consider you too.'

She nodded too, and they stood there for a moment, hand-in-hand, but still feeling an undercurrent of tension and awkwardness there.

After a beat, Bozer grinned and gestured grandly to the lab, dealing with that tension and awkwardness in the best way he knew how.

'Now, Miss Martin, has anyone given you the grand tour yet?'

Leanna laughed and shook her head with fond exasperation.

'No…are you volunteering, Mr Beaver?'

* * *

'Mac?'

Matty walked into the near-empty lab (the only occupants were Mac and Sparky, the former making some modification to the latter's left shoulder joint), and the blonde looked up at her.

'Thanks to the intel we got out of Walsh…' She'd insisted on doing most of the interrogation, though James had pulled rank on her to at least get a chance to do some of it. '…we just arrested the entire leadership of the La Ola cartel. They're going down.'

Mac nodded and gave a wan little smile.

'Good.'

* * *

In a cubicle in the women's bathroom (she wanted privacy and this was the best place she could think of), Riley dialled a number that she called very, very frequently.

'Hey, my lady.'

Riley smiled, soft and fond and a tiny bit exasperated, as she did every time he called her that.

'Hey, Billy.' She paused for a moment. 'I, uh…thought more about your offer, and…' She sighed. 'I do love the idea of being near you, but…' She swallowed again, and spoke, with great certainty. Finality. 'I can't leave my family.'

Billy was silent for the tiniest moment, before he replied, and she could practically see that soft little smile on his face, sad and understanding and with the tiniest touch of admiration in it all at once.

'I get it. I love the idea of being near you so much, lady, you can't imagine…but I couldn't leave my family either.' There was a stretch of silence for a moment, during which Riley feared that this might be the end for them, which she really, really, really didn't want. Eventually, Billy broke it, sounding as if the exact same thoughts had been running through his head. 'Guess this makes it a little harder, but you and me, neither of us have ever shied away from hard, and it's been going pretty great, so…'

Riley smiled.

'We can make this work.'

* * *

Mac walked into the interrogation room that Matty had told him his father would be in.

His dad was staring at the wall, at the height where Mac estimated Walsh's head would have been if he'd been sitting in the chair opposite his dad.

He turned to face Mac, a clear question in his expression, and Mac spoke after a moment of marshalling his thoughts, the ones that'd been swimming around his head for hours and hours and hours, into something half-orderly.

'I can't work with or for someone I don't trust.' His father nodded once in acceptance. 'But I trust everyone I work with, save one.' He paused. 'And…despite what some people say, I think trust can be repaired, and we're both really good at fixing things, so…if you're willing to do work with me on this, I'm willing to work for you for peace.'

Mac swore in that moment that his father looked moved. Actually, truly moved.

(And this time, he allowed himself to believe that it was genuine.)

James MacGyver held out a hand, and Mac took it, and they shook on it, holding each other's gazes.

'I promise, son.'

Mac nodded once in acceptance, acknowledgement.

His father's promise didn't mean much to Mac right now at all…but maybe one day, with some time and a lot of work, it would mean something.

With another nod, he released his father's hand and turned to head home.

He had some news to share…and probably some apologies to make.

* * *

 _I can't work for someone I don't trust._

 _But I also can't bear to leave my family._

 _And…I don't know if I could stop doing what I do. It feels like something I have to do, a duty. A responsibility._

 _I guess my dad was right about me in that sense._

 _I know this is far from ideal. I'm not 100% sure I've actually made the right decision._

 _But I meant what I said._

 _I trust everyone else that I work with. I trust whom I work for on a daily basis._

 _Of course I do._

 _They're my family._

 _So…maybe, because of all that, I can work for someone I don't trust yet._

 _My dad and I have more similarities than I'd care to admit._

 _But we also have some distinct differences._

 _I can't lie to a girlfriend or a wife about what I do every day. Or to the kids, once they're old enough._

 _I will never break my promises._

 _And I will never, ever leave my family._

* * *

 **MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

'…Hey, brother, where you at? I got your favourite beer!'

Jack hollered as he walked in to Mac's house. He passed Bozer in the kitchen, wearing his _Kiss the Cook_ apron again and stirring tomato soup on the stove, a foot-high stack of not-yet-grilled grilled cheeses on a plate beside him, waiting to go on the cast iron that was heating up. Mac's BFF just gestured towards the deck and started assembling even more grilled cheese sandwiches. Jack just raised an eyebrow. 'Hey, Boze, we all know Mac's metabolism is almost as fast as that brain of his, and I appreciate the faith you got in me, I really do, but that's a hell of a lot of grilled cheese, man.'

Bozer raised an eyebrow right back at Jack.

'Hey, you reckon I haven't gotten the portioning exactly right for our fam yet?' Bozer sounded very much like he did when one dared to question him about whether he'd gotten the seasoning just right or the burgers perfectly cooked. He even put his hands on his hips for emphasis. 'Riley and Matty will be here in twenty.'

Jack raised his hands.

'Hey, wasn't criticizing, just commenting…' He jerked his thumb out at the deck. 'Anyway, I'm gonna have a chat with our boy…'

'With a really long story that doesn't really go anywhere and some really weird analogies?'

'Hey, don't knock the Jack-wisdom, brother. Don't knock it!'

* * *

Mac was sitting out on the deck, fire-pit unlit, staring into the distance. He was also holding a photo in his right hand, and when Jack walked out onto the deck, he looked back down at it.

Jack sat down wordlessly beside his partner, and looked at the photo too.

It was a photo of a very beautiful woman, rolling out a pie crust, with a smudge of flour on her cheek, smiling warmly at the camera.

Without having to be told, Jack knew instantly who the woman in the photo was.

(It was really rather obvious. Mac had his mother's eyes, and his hair was almost exactly the same shade of blonde as hers. And they had the same smile, too.)

'I wish I could've met her, son.'

Mac turned his head a little and smiled at him, soft and sad and wistful.

'Yeah, me too.'

* * *

AN: Oh, come on, like I was going to let Mac or Riley quit the Phoenix…and like I could end this 'episode' with anything other than a Mac-and-Jack moment! :P

I hope you guys liked that and the direction that it took, and I really hope you think it's in-character and in the spirt of the show. I seriously considered going with several different storylines regarding James and how Mac un-quits his job at the Phoenix here. I considered having him die saving Mac from Walsh (heroically, of course, and Mac mostly forgives him as he dies – because, come on, would Mac be snarky to his dying father? Of course not!). I also considered having James quit his job in order to go hunt down his enemies, especially the ones who paid Walsh to kill Ellen (which I considered then leading to Thornton becoming Oversight – with, of course, an extremely complicated and world-shaking revelation that she was on a deep-cover op to take down The Organization the whole time that leaves the team reeling). Heck, I even considered James being actually evil (not that anybody – not even Walsh – knew) and the head of The Organization (think Chrysalis storyline but arguably ten times worse) and having killed his wife because she'd gotten too close to figuring out his double-double life or because she was a distraction or his moral compass or something. In the end, I decided that all those options were kinda the 'easy way out' in the sense that they avoided this complicated scenario (which I'm not 100% sure is in-character…but my gut tells me is) with Mac and James's relationship and Mac's decision to keep working for the Phoenix. I decided to challenge myself and go with this storyline (which will be an arc over this entire 'season', much like Mac's hunt for his dad was an arc over the entire Season 2). I tried to make James a somewhat more sympathetic character in this compared to the season finale, in the sense that we get to see more of his motivations and his past, and he does try to do a bit better by Mac. However, I'd like to say that he's not exactly meant to be likeable either. I do have some character development planned for him over this 'season', but he's not going to become Father of the Year by the end of this, promise!

I also hope you guys like my interpretation that Matty was testing Mac because A, she considered him to be a completely separate person from his father, and needed to make sure that he was also good, not just lucky, and B, she was also testing his character, because she saw James's many flaws very clearly, and wanted to make sure Mac wasn't heading down the same path. I also hope that you guys understand and like which way I'm going with Riley and Bozer's storylines (which I think is reasonably obvious if you've read my previous works…), and Jack's anger in this 'episode'.

Anyway, here's the 'preview/press release' for the next episode:

3.02, Cards to Throwing Stars. The team heads to Vegas to take down Lockheed Martin employees selling DoD secrets. Mac makes use of his (not so) secret talent, while one of Riley's is revealed. Meanwhile, who is Jack texting?

Any guesses regarding Riley's secret talent, Mac's (not so) secret talent or who Jack is texting? :P


	2. Cards to Throwing Stars

AN: Thanks for your very kind response to the last episode, I'm glad you guys like which way I'm going with Mac and James's relationship! We get a little more of it in this ep, but don't worry (looking at you especially, Gib!), there's plenty of Jack (and lots of the Mac-n-Jack show we all know and love!). I think every fortnight for updates is probably going to be the norm for this story, with how busy I am this year, but it might pick up again in the Southern Hemisphere summer (which means I should at least finish this story before the end of the real Season 3…)

* * *

 **PHOENIX JET**

 **SOMEWHERE OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN**

 **ON-ROUTE TO LA**

* * *

Mac gave a little grin-smirk as the paperclip in his hands took the shape of a coconut.

(He and Jack had just spent three days in Vanuatu, neutralizing a threat to the US ambassador.)

 _Before you ask, coconuts were involved in the threat neutralization._

 _They're my favourite nut; their various parts have a whole array of uses, from serving as projectiles, a source of oil, for buffing floors or even as a substitute for blood plasma in a pinch._

 _And, of course, can't forget that they're delicious too._

 _Pretty awesome, right?_

The grin faded a little as his phone chimed, an image of that iconic, world-shattering scene in Cloud City from _The Empire Strikes Back_ appearing on his phone.

Mac picked it up and read the text from his dad, and sighed, rolling his eyes and muttering under his breath, _what did I expect?_

(He and his father had decided to play 20-squared questions, in an attempt to get to know each other again.)

(That, Mac thought, was the first step to rebuilding trust and perhaps some semblance of a healthy, functional relationship between them.)

(Some of James's answers were along the lines of 'classified', 'above your security clearance' and 'I can neither confirm nor deny…', and quite a few more were too evasive and vague for Mac's tastes – like the answer he'd just received – but he _did_ seem to be genuinely trying to uphold his promise, within the constraints of his job and his own moral code, which Mac supposed was all he could really ask for.)

He read over his father's question and considered for a moment, before typing out a reply and putting down his phone, just as Jack's chimed (for the tenth time during this flight, not that Mac was _consciously_ counting – he simply couldn't help it) and the older man smiled, soft and slow.

The cogs started turning in Mac's brain, and as Jack texted back, a little smirk, mixed with a happy, fond smile, grew on the blonde's face.

'Guess Riley really is as good as Lindsay Lohan…even if she doesn't have a twin to help her out.'

'You mean Hayley Mills; it's all about the _original,_ brother! Reboots never work!'

Mac raised an incredulous eyebrow at his partner.

'A, the remake of _The Parent Trap_ grossed over six times' its budget, was generally critically acclaimed and is considered a pop culture icon. B, the original film, which won two Oscars, is actually _already_ an adaptation of a German novel…'

Jack studied his partner for a long moment.

'You pulling my leg, man?'

Mac held up his hands and shook his head.

' _Das doppelte Lottchen._ It's real, look it up if you don't believe me.'

Jack made a face.

'What kind of name for a book is that?'

Mac resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

'A German one. It means _the double Lotties_.'

Jack's face scrunched up a little more.

'German is a weird language.'

 _Well, I'm not going to disagree with him there._

 _I've got Turkish and Russian and Mandarin under my belt, spoken at least, which are all supposed to be far more difficult than German, but my German is honestly pretty dreadful._

 _Something about it just doesn't quite click for me._

Mac gestured at Jack's phone with a hand, then shot his partner a pointed look. Jack huffed out a sigh and shook his head with much fond exasperation.

'Changing the subject never works on you, does it?' He shook his head again, before he nodded. 'And yeah. Diane and I, we've been texting and talking.' A slow grin began to grow on Mac's face, and Jack pointed at him firmly. 'Now, don't you go counting your chickens before they hatch, and not a word to Ri, okay? We're taking this real slow, we got lots of important conversations to have, lots to work through and all.' That, Mac thought, was probably still an understatement. There was the fact of Jack's job, and the way their relationship had ended all those years ago; throw Riley and her recruitment to the Phoenix, into a very dangerous job, essentially by Jack, plus Jack's kinda, sorta friendship with Elwood, and Diane and Jack certainly had some very important conversations that they had to have. Something very soft, very serious, vulnerable and almost confessional appeared in the older man's eyes. 'We know we absolutely can't screw this up. And we don't wanna get Ri's hopes up, only to have 'em dashed and all, so…'

Mac nodded seriously, both in understanding and in a promise.

'My lips are sealed, I promise.' Jack gave a grateful little smile. 'And I have faith in you.'

Jack's smile widened a little, and then he pointed at the blonde.

'And I got faith in you, son.'

He firmly believed that one day, Mac would find the right one, find himself a good woman to love and honour and cherish 'till death did they part and have baby MacGyvers (who'd take apart the toaster and make the TV sound like Big Bird and marvel over their dad's prism collection) with.

Mac stared back at the older man for a brief moment, then looked away, something sad and longing and wistful in his expression, but also resigned, certain.

Like he really, really, really wanted something, but knew he couldn't have it. Couldn't reach out for it.

Because he felt it was wrong.

(As far as Jack knew, Mac hadn't been on a date for months, not since sometime last November. Before Zoe. Before Murdoc shot Cage. Before the assassin shot Mac and saved his life, escaped their custody and kidnapped Cassian. Before Mac had become more and more consumed with searching for his father.)

(Jack really couldn't blame him; it was a hell of a lot of drama for one guy's life, throw in Mac's job and how hard that made it to meet someone, schedule a date and actually make it to said date…well, the odds hadn't been in his favour.)

(But, Jack sensed – he might not be a science whiz like his partner, but he was a bit of a genius when it came to reading him, if he could say so himself – there was now another obstacle to Mac finding the right one.)

(An obstacle that'd always been there, true…but was now much bigger.)

Mac looked back over at Jack, fingers fiddling with a paperclip.

'I can't lie, Jack.'

He sounded almost exactly like he had more than a year and a half ago, in the US embassy in Latvia, just after Bozer had found out what his BFF _really_ did for a living, simply now even more sure, even more certain that he simply could not lie to a girlfriend or a wife about his job.

(Jack really, really couldn't blame him, given the big reveal of ten days ago.)

Jack looked back at him for a long, long moment, sad and wistful too, but also fond, eyes with more than a hint of admiration in them.

'You're really limiting the pool.'

Mac nodded.

'I know.' He swallowed. 'But doing the right thing always comes at a cost.' Mac shrugged, then a small smile grew on his face and he gestured to Jack. 'Besides, I've got you guys.'

Jack smiled that soft, fond smile back.

'And you always will, brother.'

Still, Jack thought to himself, that wasn't quite the same. As much as they loved Mac, as much as they would always be there for him…Jack knew that the younger man was lonely in a way that they, as his family, as his friends, could never help him with.

Mac was one of the best men he'd ever met, if not the best.

Jack was intimately familiar with how much Mac had sacrificed and would sacrifice for the world, for the safety of others.

For good and for peace, for all.

If there was any justice in the universe, he thought, surely the very least that Mac deserved was to have someone to love and to be loved by.

As Mac dived back into the issue of _New Scientist_ that he'd had stashed in his go-bag, Jack gave a little smirk that slowly widened.

Well, maybe there wasn't any justice in the universe. Not naturally, anyway.

But Jack had always fancied himself a bit of a vigilante.

Maybe he could go a little Batman on his partner's love life.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…This is Martin Stynes…' An image of a slightly overweight, middle-aged man wearing glasses and a very smart suit appeared on the screen as Matty gestured to it. '…and Eliza Lim.' A picture of an Asian woman who couldn't be much older than her early thirties, hair immaculately styled into a bun, appeared next to Stynes. 'They work for Lockheed Martin on a series of classified DoD projects. They're also suspected to be selling classified intel from said projects.'

Mac, Jack, Bozer and Riley all exchanged a glance, Mac reaching for a paperclip from the bowl without even thinking about it. Jack spoke.

'So, where they at and how're we gonna take 'em down?'

Matty put her hands on her hips and shot Jack a look.

'I'm getting there, Dalton! Patience is a virtue!'

Bozer jogged Riley lightly with his elbow.

'And clearly, it isn't one of Jack's.'

Riley raised an eyebrow at him ( _read the room!),_ but seemed to agree anyway.

Jack affected an affronted expression, which made Mac give a little smirk and shake his head in amusement, until Matty quirked an eyebrow at them and they all fell silent and serious again.

'Stynes and Lim have _just so happened_ to both take leave at the same time and go on vacation to the _exact same place.'_

A picture of Las Vegas appeared on screen, and Jack did a fist-pump.

'Hell, yeah! Viva Las Vegas, baby!'

Matty put her hands on her hips again and leaned closer to Jack.

'You are going to Vegas to _do your job_ and neutralize a threat to _national security._ '

Jack immediately gulped at the look on her face, affected a serious expression and nodded, then saluted Matty, even clicking his heels together.

'Yes, ma'am!'

Matty nodded, as if to say, _thank you,_ sarcastically.

'You four are to get the proof we need to take down Lim, Stynes and the potential buyer or buyers.' They all nodded seriously. 'Wheels up in 30. Riley, Jill's sent you all we have on Stynes, Lim and any suspected prospective buyers…'

* * *

 **THE PALAZZO CASINO AND HOTEL**

 **LAS VEGAS**

* * *

Jack groaned as the man sitting across from him in a huge cowboy hat tossed down his hand and scooped the pot.

(He told himself that he'd only lost because he wasn't paying that much attention to the game, since he was keeping an eye out for Lim and Stynes.)

The woman sitting next to him (from her accent, he was pretty sure she was Kenyan) raised a challenging eyebrow at him.

'Are you thinking of giving up, Mr…?'

'Agnew. Curtis Agnew.' Curtis Agnew was a Texan whose family had made their money in cattle ranching and had decided to take up investing in start-ups in Silicon Valley, though he had a reputation for having more money than sense or an understanding of science, technology and engineering. (At least, that's what the backstopped cover the Phoenix had prepped for him said. Jack had filled in some of the blanks on the jet already; Curtis's favourite food was a good old chicken fried steak, he wasn't a big fan of cowboy hats, controversially, but always wore cowboy boots, and he was definitely a dog person, not a cat person.) 'And nah, we Agnews never give up.'

* * *

'One martini, shaken, not stirred, coming right up, sir.'

Bozer, dressed in a very smart waistcoat like all the other bartenders and waiters at the casino bar, nodded with his best customer service smile at the slightly-balding, painfully lean man in wire-rimmed glasses. He turned to grab his cocktail shaker, eyes sweeping out over the bar as he did so, discreetly searching for Lim or Stynes. Neither of them had showed yet, but their op _was_ only six hours old.

(He had, however, gotten the 'martini, shaken, not stirred' order four times already.)

(Mac insisted that martinis were better _stirred_ , not shaken. He'd even devised a set of experiments to prove it.)

(That night had ended with the two BFFs having a really weird, but really heartfelt and touching drunken conversation.)

(Still, Bozer still wasn't convinced, despite how amazing his BFF was at all things science, and despite the fact that Mac was pretty much always right.)

(James Bond liked his martinis shaken. James Bond was _James Bond_!)

* * *

Mac took the three chips from the blackjack dealer with a smile, adding them to his already-substantial rack of chips.

Blackjack was easy.

It was all probability. Maths with a side of card-memorizing.

(All things that were right up his alley…and skills he'd honed at MIT.)

(They hadn't _just_ done non-faculty-approved experiments in the Tombs.)

(He and Frankie and Smitty and their friends had done more typical college activities too…just with an MIT twist.)

(Blackjack had gotten boring after a while, but their poker games had been _really, really_ intense.)

He seemingly idly scanned the room, pretending to think, instead searching carefully and quickly for Lim or Stynes.

Neither of them were anywhere to be seen. From the occasional chatter on his comm, Jack, Riley and Bozer hadn't seen either of them either.

That concerned him somewhat, as his brain started throwing out potential explanations, started pointing out potential flaws in their intel.

(He discounted almost all of them at once, however.)

As a consequence, he didn't pay enough attention to the round, and the dealer won, despite the fact that it was, he realized, mathematically possible for him to have won.

Still, that was probably a good thing.

If he won at the average rate he'd won in his MIT days, he'd definitely arouse the suspicion of casino security, and that was something that neither he, nor his cover (Travis Bates, MIT grad, engineer and sometime business partner of Curtis Agnew), wanted.

 _And hey, it's not my money._

* * *

Riley, wearing a very tasteful and elegant, yet very much still 'knockout' silky jewel-green dress with gold heels and jewellery, lounged in the booth she'd claimed, sipping at the cocktail in front of her.

(At least, it _looked_ like a cocktail. It was mostly pineapple juice and contained absolutely no alcohol.)

(It'd been purchased for her by an admirer - apparently, even an 'off-duty' lounge singer, who hadn't actually performed in the last eight hours, and had no intention of performing, and wouldn't have to, thanks to Jill getting into the rostering system, still attracted fans, which was honestly a little creepy – but Bozer had made it and delivered it to her, so she knew it was safe to drink.)

(He was responsible for turning the cocktail into a mocktail.)

Subtly, she tapped her comm in the pre-arranged signal, checking in and reporting what she'd seen.

Which was nothing.

Riley pulled out a compact mirror and a stick of lipstick from her little clutch (which was a lot roomier on the inside than it looked, since it was a custom job by Mac and Bozer), holding up the mirror to let her see into the one major blind-spot she had from her position.

She caught a flash, just a flash, of a man who looked remarkably like Stynes (at least, Stynes in profile – she didn't get to see his face from the front, as he was only passing the lounge bar, heading towards the gaming tables).

Idly, casually, she finished touching up her lipstick and put her makeup and mirror away, before taking a sip of her drink and tapping her comm again subtly in a different pattern.

She got two sets of three identical taps back.

* * *

'…Yeah, good eyes, Ri. We got Stynes here, he's…woo, boy…playing on one of those high-roller tables.'

Jack stepped behind a pillar and spoke quietly (for him, at least) into his earpiece.

'He must have gotten an advance pay-out from the buyer, I'm texting Matty and Jill now.'

That was Bozer. Jack glanced over at Stynes again, who was very engrossed in his poker game.

'We gotta get closer to him…any ideas on how we're gonna get him away from that table?'

It was Mac who responded (which they'd honestly all expected – he _was_ the ideas man, after all).

'We're not going to pull him away from his game; I'm going to join in.'

Jack (already mentally planning how he was going to explain the theft of a very large amount of poker chips or something like that to Matty – he knew Mac could do it without being caught, but the expense report was going to be _terrible,_ he just knew it) made a face.

'Where you gonna get the buy-in, brother? You know Matty will be pissed if we gotta call in for, like, 100K in cash…'

'Not a problem, Jack.'

At that moment, Mac casually walked by, seemingly also casually hefting the rack of chips (the really, really full rack of chips) in his right hand.

Jack couldn't help but gape a little, and muttered under his breath.

'I know your mortgage is all paid off already…but seriously, you mind helping out a friend with his? I'll shout you a long weekend here in Vegas...'

* * *

 **TWO HOURS LATER**

* * *

Stynes let out a low whistle, genuinely impressed, and turned a little in his seat to address Mac.

'Where'd you learn to play like that, kid?'

Several of the other players around the table also glanced over at him, very keen (though they hid it quite well, being good poker players themselves) to hear the answer.

(Mac _had_ won the last three games, after all.)

The blonde gave a half-shrug, a little smile-smirk appearing on his face.

'MIT.'

* * *

As Mac built a rapport with Stynes, with Riley as backup and a second pair of eyes (she was playing a few rounds of roulette at a wheel that had a really good view of Stynes from another angle while on her 'break'), Jack and Bozer finally caught sight of Lim.

She'd walked into the bar…and ordered club soda with lime.

Bozer had prepared her drink and managed to catch sight of a USB stick on a lanyard (which Lim had quickly tucked back into her shirt once she'd noticed it was dangling out, though she didn't seem suspicious of Bozer in the slightest – from his time as a burger-flipper, Bozer was well aware that a certain subset of the population, which Lim clearly belonged to, treated waitstaff and the like pretty much as furniture and paid no attention to them).

Jack had, a few minutes later, walked casually into the bar and ordered Jack Daniels and coke.

(Bozer had poured him something that was really, really heavy on the coke and really, really light on the Jack.)

He was now sitting in a corner of the bar, nursing his drink and apparently arguing with some business partners on his phone.

Lim had done nothing but occasionally sip at her soda while frequently texting or emailing someone on her phone. Her expression was serious, and she was clothed in business attire, despite supposedly being on holiday.

(In contrast, her apparent partner in the intel theft was barely adhering to the casino's dress code – a Hawaiian shirt didn't exactly scream classy casino wear.)

She made a noise of frustration, and sculled her drink, putting the empty glass back on the table with a loud _thunk._ Bozer, who was bussing tables, collecting empty glasses, took the opportunity to stop by her table and held out a hand for her glass.

'A refill, ma'am?'

Lim didn't even look up at him, she just nodded dismissively, muttering at her phone.

'Half now, half later, not hard to understand, 5% is _not_ a gesture of good faith…'

Bozer picked up several more empty glasses on his way to Jack's table.

'Can I interest you in a refill, sir?' He leaned a little closer to Jack to pick up the older man's glass, and whispered as he did. 'You thinking what I'm thinking?'

'Oh, Lim's definitely wearing the pants in this partnership. Err…metaphorically speaking.' She was wearing a pencil skirt. Stynes had, at least, followed the letter of the dress code, and was wearing long khakis. 'Ri, reckon you can get into her computer?'

'I'll probably need to get into her room; I doubt she's connected it to the free Wi-Fi. And chances are, she's got the intel and anything else important on that USB and not on her laptop. It's what I'd do.'

'Well, let's hope the bad guys ain't as smart as you, Riles.'

* * *

'Yeah, I'm going to need to get into Lim's room.' Riley, secreted in a room that was _supposedly_ closed for a really thorough cleaning due to some really rowdy guests, made a noise of frustration as her last trick for hacking into Lim's computer (or phone) without physically accessing it failed. 'Mac?'

'Jack and I are a little tied up. Uh…not literally.' That was an important distinction, with their line of work. 'We've got dinner with Stynes and Lim in twenty.'

Stynes seemed intrigued by the (entirely fictional – well, for now, he was feeling inspired) automatic, autonomous lawnmower, best described as a Roomba for lawns, that Travis Bates had invented.

He also seemed very keen to pick Mac's brain for poker tips.

Thus, the invitation for Travis and his business partner to have dinner with him and his business partner.

Bozer's voice sounded out over their comms.

'Hey, Mac, would that thing you did at the hotel when your grandpa took us to Boston, Spring Break of Senior Year, work here?'

Riley could _hear_ the little grin-smirk on Mac's face as he replied.

'Exactly what I was thinking, Boze. You remember how to do it?'

She could also hear the corresponding grin-smirk on Bozer's face when he replied.

'How could I _forget,_ bro?'

* * *

 **FANCY RESTAURANT**

 **(VERY FANCY RESTAURANT)**

 **LAS VEGAS**

* * *

Stynes and Lim both stood as Mac and Jack, dressed in very sharp suits, walked up to their table. Lim held out a hand to Jack first, then Mac, shaking both their hands with a polite, albeit perfunctory and very business-like smile on her face, while Stynes grinned and clapped the younger man on the back, before doing the same to Jack.

'Travis has told me all about you, Curtis!'

Jack nodded slowly with a look on his face as if to say _oh, really?_ He turned to Mac, raising an eyebrow.

'All good things, I hope?'

Mac just shook his head and rolled his eyes.

Jack was _ridiculous._

(And he wouldn't have him any other way.)

* * *

 **OUTSIDE LIM'S ROOM**

 **THE PALAZZO CASINO AND HOTEL**

 **LAS VEGAS**

* * *

Riley and Bozer, dressed in the very smart uniforms of the hotel's waiters, Bozer pushing a trolley covered in cloches and dishes, Riley bearing a large vase of flowers (all 'creatively obtained'), walked towards Lim's door. Riley knocked loudly and shifted so that she and her very large vase of flowers, combined with the heavily-laden trolley, hid what Bozer was doing from the vast majority of vantage points.

(She'd already looped the hotel security cameras, but they could never be too careful.)

'Room service!'

The door clicked open, Bozer making a little noise of triumph and slipping a modified business card back into his pocket, before reaching a hand under the top of the trolley, pressing a button on the handy little signal jammer that Mac had made that he and Riley had duct-taped to the trolley, to prevent any alerts from any security system that Lim might have had in place being sent out.

Riley smiled as if there was someone on the other side of the door, holding out the flowers.

'Where would you like them, ma'am?'

She and Bozer then stepped inside, Bozer pushing the trolley in, the door clicking closed behind them.

* * *

Once inside the room, Riley set down the flowers on the nearest flat surface, but not before retrieving a small bug stuck to the underside of the vase, sticking it instead to the underside of the coffee table that she put the flowers on.

Meanwhile, Bozer started lifting the cloches, to reveal several gadgets, some standard Phoenix issue, some non-standard Mac-issue (nothing Mac made was ever standard), and some a hybrid of both. He grabbed the bug sweeper, and started sweeping the room for any bugs that Lim and/or Stynes might have planted.

Riley quickly searched for and located Lim's laptop, and after pulling on a pair of gloves, bent over it and started typing.

* * *

 **FANCY RESTAURANT**

 **(VERY FANCY RESTAURANT)**

 **LAS VEGAS**

* * *

'...well, the first prototype was a disaster.'

'It was not!'

'It chewed through your deck and, like, two pairs of your shoes, man. That's a disaster!'

'Those deck posts needed replacing and my shoes needed re-soling anyway.'

'Yeah, yeah, whatever you said, brother. Whatever you say.'

Jack shook his head with a grin and jerked a thumb at Mac as if to say, _can you believe this guy?_

Stynes roared with laughter at the Mac-n-Jack show, and even Lim cracked an amused little smile.

Mac rolled his eyes and returned to his steak, cutting a bite-sized piece, putting it into his mouth and chewing.

At least dinner was delicious.

(His steak was a perfect medium-rare. In other words, perfectly cooked.)

(The same couldn't be said of Jack's so-blue-it-was-practically-mooing steak.)

 _We long ago agreed to disagree on how a perfectly-cooked steak should be cooked._

 _We had to._

 _It was the only way to save our friendship._

 _Let's just say…that argument was only an order of magnitude or so milder than the bolt carrier incident, which, trust me, is really saying something._

 _But that's a story for another day._

* * *

 **LIM'S ROOM**

 **THE PALAZZO CASINO AND HOTEL**

 **LAS VEGAS**

* * *

Riley made a noise of triumph.

'I'm in!'

She pulled a specially-designed thumb drive from her pocket (it could hold way more data than an average one, and automatically encrypted everything downloaded onto it with the encryption code Riley, Jill and some other techs had put together), and inserted it into Lim's laptop.

Bozer paused in his bug deactivation, putting down the thingamajig that somehow destroyed the bug's function without physically damaging it, so as to be almost undetectable (he didn't understand how it worked – Mac had tried to explain, but he'd gotten a little too excited and hence a little too technical for Bozer to follow - but it was a seriously awesome piece of tech), and reached out to bump his fist to Riley's with a grin.

* * *

 **TRAVIS BATES' ROOM**

 **THE PALAZZO CASINO AND HOTEL**

 **LAS VEGAS**

* * *

Later that evening, after Bozer and Riley had wrapped up their B&E and Mac and Jack their dinner (they hadn't really gotten any useful intel out of Stynes and Lim, but they had kept them busy and distracted, and they did know that their meeting with the prospective buyer wasn't until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest, since Stynes had invited both 'Travis' and 'Curtis' to play the tables with him the next morning), Riley typed busily, her headphones in as she conferenced with Jill back at the Phoenix as they combed through the entire contents of Lim's laptop (as Riley had suspected, almost everything incriminating wasn't on it, presumably on the USB that Lim had with her instead, but there were still a few useful nuggets of intel on her laptop; they just had to find them all), while Jack cleaned his weapons methodically.

Meanwhile, Mac and Bozer sat on the other side of the room, variously packing up, unpacking and modifying their mission gear.

Eventually, Bozer spoke as he finished brushing out the hair on a wig, which had somehow gotten tangled despite his best efforts when packing it. He pointed at his best friend, who was doing something to what Bozer was pretty sure used to be a walkie-talkie using bits taken from what probably had once been the hotel room's hairdryer.

'Seriously, man, you'd be an awesome movie protagonist, you know, save the world every other week, Hollywood good looks, charming quirks, those cheesy-yet-heartfelt lines you like to throw out…' Bozer's voice shifted meaningfully in tone. '…the daddy issues…'

Mac raised an eyebrow, and smiled at his best friend, a little confused, rather amused and definitely very fond.

'Uh…thanks, Boze?'

Bozer grinned at him, then his expression grew much more serious.

'If you wanna talk, my door's always open.' He paused. 'Figuratively. Uh, probably good idea to knock first, we don't want a repeat of…well, you know.' He and Mac had pinkie-promised to never talk about that again. 'Anyway, knock, anytime, even if you just want a repeat of '01.'

Bozer had done everything he could to comfort Mac when his dad had left. Being a twelve year old boy, that might not have seemed like much, but to Mac, his BFF's constant attempts to cheer him up (ranging from baking him an incredible eight-layer chocolate cake, to stuffing him with grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, to inviting him to play mini-golf or go bowling, to going on very long walks around the neighbourhood with Mac and Archimedes which inevitably turned into runs – Archimedes was really fast and somehow frequently managed to slip his leash or tug it free – to spending hours in Mac's room or their treehouse-lab, just listening and offering words and hugs of comfort in turn) had been a very bright light at the end of a very dark tunnel.

Mac smiled, soft and fond, and reached out to pull Bozer into a side-hug.

'Thanks, Boze.'

Bozer smiled right back at him, returning the hug.

'Anytime, bro. Anytime.' Then, he pointed at the blonde. 'You know what we definitely should have a repeat of? That seriously incredible eight-layer chocolate cake.'

Mac grinned and pointed right back at his BFF.

'Exactly what I was thinking.'

Bozer grinned wider.

'Hey, great minds think alike! I'm sure I've still got the recipe somewhere…'

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Riley pulled off her headphones and motioned over to the three men, as Matty and Jill appeared on the screen, Matty standing in the war room, Jill perched on the arm of one of the chairs.

'We have an ID on the buyer.' A picture of an Arab man wearing a red-and-white check scarf around his head with a beard who looked to be in his mid-sixties appeared on half of the screen. 'Tariq Al-Yami.' Matty paused. 'Who also happens to be the owner of the Palazzo, as of two months ago.'

Jill piped up from where she was sitting with her laptop on her lap.

'And he's got a _seriously_ dodgy reputation…but no-one's ever been able to make any charges stick.'

Mac, Jack, Bozer and Riley all exchanged a glance.

They all knew that their mission had just gotten an awful lot more complicated.

Al-Yami, of course, had casino security in his pocket.

And he'd never get his own hands dirty, he'd have a lackey or lackeys do all the dirty work, so trying to pin this all on him was going to be seriously difficult.

Jack rubbed his hands together.

'Alright, what's the plan?' They all knew that they'd have to keep the casino security occupied while they got the evidence they needed to take down Stynes, Lim and Al-Yami. He glanced at Mac particularly when he said that. 'We gonna go all _Ocean's 11_? 'Cause seriously, it ain't _Die Hard_ , and Clooney's no Bruce, but it's still pretty high on the Dalton Awesome Scale.'

Riley gave a snort and raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms and shooting Jack a look.

'There's a Dalton Awesome Scale?'

Jack nodded, as if it was obvious.

'Of course. It's in Daltons.'

The hacker rolled her eyes and exchanged a glance with Mac and Bozer, who both shook their heads, the former letting out a long-suffering sigh, the latter giving a little chuckle.

' _Of course_ it is.'

'The Dalton is _already_ a unit of measurement, it's the standard unit of mass for atomic mass…' Mac trailed off, his _I-have-an-idea_ face appearing, then pointed at his partner. 'You're a genius.'

Jack preened.

'See, he approves of the Dalton Awesome Scale, Ri-'

' _Not_ regarding the Dalton Awesome Scale, it's so subjective and specific it's really not useful, and you need to come up with a new unit for it anyway, since Dalton is already in use…' Mac shook his head, getting back on topic. 'No, _Ocean's 11_.'

* * *

 **BAR**

 **THE PALAZZO CASINO AND HOTEL**

 **LAS VEGAS**

* * *

Bozer smiled at the stunning woman in a lacy black dress and bright-red lipstick who was sitting at a table, waiting for the man whom he assumed was her boyfriend to come back from the bathroom. He gestured at the very well-built man across the room with the edge of a nasty-looking scar poking out from under his collar.

(It was probably a product of having watched too many movies, having too wild an imagination and his line of work, but Bozer would bet at least 10% of Mac's winnings from the day before that the man was some kind of Mafia enforcer.)

'Compliments of the gentleman over there.'

He'd timed it perfectly, because the woman's equally well-built boyfriend (who gave off pretty similar vibes as the other guy), walked up to her just then.

He glared at Bozer, then at the man across the room, and Bozer gulped and beat a hasty retreat, his job done.

(It was in-character.)

(Also, he _really_ didn't want to get into the crossfire of this one.)

* * *

 **SLOT MACHINES**

 **THE PALAZZO CASINO AND HOTEL**

 **LAS VEGAS**

* * *

'Oh my God! I won! I won!'

The middle-aged woman let out a high-pitched cry of excitement, jumping up and down and reaching out to hug the stranger next to her.

Several machines away, another jackpot symbol lit up, and the young man at the machine made a noise of disbelief, before grabbing one of his buddies into a hug that involved a lot of back-slapping.

As the spontaneous celebrations grew louder and more raucous, a third machine, two rows away, lit up, and there were more screams.

As casino security staff began muttering to one another on their earpieces, looking (understandably) suspicious, beginning to discretely investigate, Mac gave a little smile-smirk and reached up to tap his earpiece in a series of dots and dashes.

(Riley's Morse code wasn't as good as Jack's or his, but he knew she'd understand _great job_ and _thank you.)_

* * *

 **BAR**

 **THE PALAZZO CASINO AND HOTEL**

 **LAS VEGAS**

* * *

'Ladies, ladies!' Three security guards were trying to break up a melee between two young women in evening gowns. It was proving to be a very difficult task, especially since the other four security guards in the room were dealing with dragging two very burly and very angry (and very jealous) men out of the bar, as well as the surprisingly vicious girlfriend of one of them. 'We have a situation in Sector 4, requesting back-up…'

(Honestly, Bozer had only intended to cause a scene, by playing a clumsy waiter and bumping into one of the two women enough to cause her to spill her drink on the other.)

(He had _not_ been planning on the catfight, but it was proving to be a really useful distraction.)

(Sure, it wasn't in the plan, but Bozer figured no-one would complain.)

(They actually had a plan – a pretty detailed plan – for once, so…)

* * *

 **POKER TABLES**

 **THE PALAZZO CASINO AND HOTEL**

 **LAS VEGAS**

* * *

'…Hey, he's cheating!'

'I am not!'

'You can't have the Ace of Spades, 'cause I have it!'

'Security, we have a situation…'

As all-round chaos erupted, Mac slipped out of the casino area, and into the very classy VIP lounge, the one that Riley (or rather, her cover) supposedly worked in, where they'd determined that Stynes and Lim were meeting Al-Yami's henchmen.

 _When I was fourteen, I devoted hours and hours to perfecting the art of illusion._

 _Magic is definitely not real, but magic tricks definitely are._

 _For some reason, I thought it'd impress Darlene Martin. Or, you know, at least maybe get a girl who wasn't Penny to actually talk to me about something other than borrowing my homework._

 _Yeah, I know. Fourteen-year-old me was a pretty stupid genius._

 _But those sleight of hand skills were not learned in vain._

 _I just never considered actually utilizing this potential application when I was fourteen._

* * *

 **VIP LOUNGE**

 **(REALLY, REALLY VIP VIP LOUNGE)**

 **THE PALAZZO CASINO AND HOTEL**

 **LAS VEGAS**

* * *

Mac casually strolled into the lounge, and, glancing around as if he was looking for the person he was meant to be meeting, he spotted Riley, in a seat near the piano, sipping what looked like pineapple juice, then located Jack and smiled and gave a nod at his supposed business partner and slipped a hand into the pocket of his suit jacket to turn on the recording device that he and Riley had put together.

(It had a good range of up to 20 feet for really clear recordings, up to 50 for something that'd need clean-up with one, or several, of Riley or Jill's programs, but unfortunately, it couldn't transmit the data to the Phoenix or to the FBI team that Matty had standing by while it was inside the casino.)

(The casino had a lot of security to both jam and detect any transmissions within the premises, for good reason.)

(Mac and Jack would either have to get the device outside or into the hotel area to send out the evidence they collected.)

Jack had staked out a booth for them that was only about 15 feet from the table where Stynes and Lim were sitting at, the older man looking reasonably serious (he'd ditched the Hawaiian shirt for business attire), the younger woman looking just as business-like as she'd been the day before, albeit a little impatient, but handily hidden behind a combination of a large potted plant, a pillar and some beaded-curtain-sculpture-hybrid.

(Besides, even if Lim and Stynes spotted them, it wasn't exactly suspicious for Travis Bates and Curtis Agnew to be drinking in the VIP lounge anyway.)

A very pretty cocktail waitress set down a drink in front of Mac (a martini, which Mac was sure would be shaken, not stirred – which he maintained was _not_ the proper way to be drinking a martini, no matter what James Bond thought – knowing his partner), smiling at him in a way that Jack knew was definitely not a customer service smile. Not even a sucking-up-for-tips one.

Mac, being Mac and being very focused on the mission at that moment, didn't notice.

Jack gave her an apologetic little smile and handed her a $20 tip (funded from a couple of the chips he'd taken from Mac's winnings that morning – Curtis Agnew was definitely the type to splash the cash, and he had to play his cover to the hilt, of course – besides, there were still, like, 100 chips sitting in that rack). The waitress seemed to cheer up a tiny bit, just as Mac gave Jack a little nod, shifting his martini a little, in a way that _could_ have just been thanking his partner for the drink, but Jack knew wasn't.

He took a look in one of the shiny silver metal balls that made up that really weird sculpture and caught a glimpse of a very well-dressed man of Arab appearance, flanked by no fewer than six bodyguards. Five of the guards took positions around the room, the sixth remaining by the (presumably) head lackey's side as he shook hands with Lim and Stynes, taking a seat opposite them.

Jack and Mac exchanged a glance, the expression on the older man's face clearly saying _it's show-time,_ Mac picking up the olive from his martini glass and eating it, before pocketing the toothpick.

(He had a particular soft-spot for martinis that didn't have much to do with James Bond and had an awful lot to do with toothpicks.)

(They were so _useful!)_

* * *

'…How do we know he can pay?'

The chief lackey gave an elegant snort.

'Miss Lim, I am not a fool. You have done your research into my boss.' He paused, something bragging in his tone. 'Besides, look around you…'

Mac and Jack exchanged a significant look. That was probably enough, at least enough to get a subpoena to do some more thorough digging on Al-Yami.

Unfortunately, at that moment, one of the bodyguards posted around the room caught Jack's gaze.

Clearly, this bodyguard was really, really good. Had those instincts that some said you had to be born with, and some said could be honed with long enough in their line of work, because he seemed to recognize Jack for what he was, or at least, his suspicions were raised enough, because he started moving towards him and Mac.

Jack swore under his breath, and he and Mac wasted no time jumping up from their seats and running over to the discreet door that led to the kitchen area, Mac in the lead, having already memorized the casino layout while on the jet.

The six bodyguards all exchanged a look, before five of them gave chase, the sixth remaining beside his boss, as Al-Yami's man, Lim and Stynes all exchanged a look, Lim shifting a little in her seat as if she wanted to get out of there, even as Al-Yami's man tried to assure her that his men had the situation under control.

As he narrowly avoided barrelling into a waiter carrying a whole tray of champagne glasses, Mac pressed a hand to his earpiece.

'We can't let them leave the lounge…' They all knew that if that happened, Lim and Stynes would be in the wind, and they'd have a hell of a time tracking them down again. '…Riley-'

'I'm on it.'

There was something a tiny bit unsteady in her voice, but it also, somehow, sounded very sure, very confident, at the same time.

Mac pushed his curiosity and the touch of worry aside for the moment (Riley could handle herself, and besides, he and Jack had bigger problems to deal with right now – he shoved a trolley covered in dirty dishes in the direction of one of the bodyguards who'd gotten too close for comfort), and kept running.

* * *

Mac and Jack jumped over the bar that Bozer was working behind, Mac brushing against his best friend, though he didn't even stop to look at him or apologize.

Bozer, too, played his part perfectly, as Mac and Jack sprinted through the bar, barely avoiding the patrons.

'Hey, what the hell, man?' He turned to another one of the bartenders. 'We need to call security…'

Three of the five bodyguards practically shoved Bozer and his fellow bartender aside, knocking the other man to the floor. Bozer managed to catch himself on the edge of the bar, as the other two bodyguards rushed into the room, and swore as they just missed Mac and Jack.

* * *

Riley, swallowing her nerves, not letting them show at all, strode up to the piano, a seductive little smile on her face, and elegantly picked up the microphone, leaning over to whisper something to the pianist.

The man nodded, and started to play, and Riley took a deep breath, then plastering that little smile back on her face, putting a deliberate swing in her hips, strode over to Al-Yami's chief henchman, beginning to sing.

'There's a saying old, says that love is blind…'

Just as she'd intended, all eyes in the lounge turned to him.

Trapping him, and his companions.

'…only man I ever think of with regret...'

* * *

As the beautiful, haunting, rich and pitch-perfect voice rang out over his comm, Bozer almost dropped the tray of glasses he was carrying through one of the service corridors, to the autoclave.

It was less so the incredible, amazing quality of the voice…but more the fact that he _recognized_ it.

He hadn't known Riley could sing.

Clearly, the lady was _seriously, totally, amazingly, incredibly awesome._

* * *

Mac started a little as he and Jack ran into the casino.

 _Well, you do learn something new every day. Even, sometimes, about the people you know best._

Jack just smiled, soft and fond.

He hadn't heard Riley sing often, and he hadn't heard her sing for years, but somewhere, deep in his heart of hearts, he'd truly missed it.

(Riley was really, really good.)

(But Diane was even better.)

(Once upon a time, she used to sing for him. Well, for herself too – she loved it - but when it was just the two of them.)

(A private show.)

(He hoped that he'd get another one of those one day.)

(He wished, quietly and secretly, deep in his heart of hearts, that he might just get a whole lifetime of them.)

* * *

As one of the bodyguards cornered him by one of the poker tables, Mac reached into his pocket and tossed the small black box in there at his partner, 15 feet away, who, drawing on his high school and college football days, caught it, pushing the bodyguard who ran at him aside in a truly football-style move and making for the doorway on the other side of the room. Mac, meanwhile, as the bodyguards focused their attention on his partner, seized a deck of cards from a quite shell-shocked dealer, and started precisely throwing them at a precise angle and with a precise amount of force, with a special flick of his wrist, at the exposed skin of the bodyguards chasing Jack.

He struck one in the neck, causing him to flinch a little (papercuts really, really, really stung), and bring a hand back to rub the wound. Mac took that chance to hit the man in his right hand, across the knuckles, with a card, before throwing one at the exposed wrist of another bodyguard.

He saw an opportunity out of the corner of his eye and took it, pulling an empty chair from one of the nearby tables and flinging it into the path of a third bodyguard, causing the man to trip over it and hit the deck hard, as he only sort-of managed to get his hands out to cushion the blow.

Barely stopping to check his handiwork, Mac threw another playing card at the bodyguard he'd already cut twice, finally letting him catch up with the man. He pressed his advantage, grappling with the man briefly until the bodyguard had backed him into a whole row of slot machines. Then, Mac grabbed the handcuffs he'd seized from the man's belt, and with a little smirk (he couldn't really help it), clicked one side closed around the man's right wrist, then another closed around the slot machine, quickly jamming the lock with the toothpick from his martini.

Then, he raced off to help Jack.

* * *

'Brother!'

Jack, with two of the guards advancing on him and backed into a corner, tossed the black box at his partner, who caught it with his lightning-quick reflexes and incredible hand-eye coordination, and turned tail agilely and ran off. Jack, meanwhile, as soon as he'd thrown it, trusting Mac to catch it, socked one of the bodyguards in the jaw, hard, then kneed him in the stomach, even harder. The man crumpled, and Jack took a leaf out of his boy's book and used what he had, tossing the unconscious man at his co-worker, then used a leaf out of his book and head-butted the man, who also crumpled like a sack of potatoes.

'Woo, boy! Who's the man?'

Even though he was running like the hounds of Hell were on his heels, Mac shook his head and rolled his eyes with fond exasperation.

* * *

Eventually, the two remaining bodyguards (one sporting a nasty cut on his head from where he'd hit the deck after Mac tripped him with that chair) cornered Mac and Jack in a deserted service corridor, their weapons finally drawn.

(They had orders not to shoot in front of the casino and hotel patrons…but there was no-one here.)

Both men gave very dark grins, each holding their guns aimed centre mass at one of the partners.

Mac and Jack exchanged a glance, then slowly raised their hands.

The older and presumably more senior of the bodyguards spoke, voice terse.

'Give me the device.'

Jack gestured to his partner with his head.

'Well, you heard the man, brother, give him the thingamajig.'

' _You've_ got it!'

Jack's brow furrowed in exaggerated confusion.

'Nah, _you've_ got it, I tossed it to you back over by the roulette wheels…'

'Yeah, but I gave it to you when we passed the laundry room!'

'You did? I must have dropped it, it's probably lost in those towels somewhere…' Jack turned back to the very irate and impatient bodyguards. 'Sorry, gents, you're gonna have to go laundry-basket diving…'

The younger bodyguard's hand tightened on the trigger, and the older one held out a hand to stay him, levelling a stare at Mac and Jack.

'Quit stalling.' He gestured with his head imperiously at his younger colleague, who passed him his gun, then started frisking Mac, and then Jack. He pulled out the black thing with several lights on it that Mac and Jack had been tossing back and forth, held it up and swore.

It was an extremely fancy, adjustable, digital mini measuring cup from the bar.

* * *

 **FIFTEEN MINUTES EARLIER**

* * *

Bozer, having ditched the tray of glasses he'd been carrying (no-one ever bothered someone who looked like they were walking somewhere with a purpose, especially not a waiter labouring under a load of glasses), burst out into the alleyway behind the casino's service area, and immediately, the device in his pocket, which Mac had slipped in there when he'd brushed by him when he'd jumped over the bar (lifting Bozer's fancy measuring glass as he did so), began to made a whirring-beeping noise that Mac and Riley had assured him meant it was transmitting.

* * *

 **BACK TO THE PRESENT**

 **(AND MAC AND JACK'S LITTLE PREDICAMENT)**

 **(YES, IT'S A LITTLE ONE)**

 **(THIS IS THE THIRD TIME THEY'VE BEEN HELD AT GUNPOINT THIS MONTH)**

* * *

Both bodyguards stared at the measuring cup for a long moment, before turning to Mac and Jack, unrestrained fury now in their eyes. The older guard handed the younger back his weapon…just as an FBI SWAT team burst in.

Mac and Jack let out that breath that they'd been holding, and Jack reached out and clapped the younger man on the back as the FBI agents restrained the two bodyguards.

'George Clooney ain't got nothing on you, man.'

Mac shook his head, and clapped Jack's back in return.

'Didn't I see you tackle one of those guys just like Kevin Perkins?'

Jack preened and smirked.

'Worthy of a place on the highlights' reel, eh, brother?'

The smirk on Mac's face grew teasing.

'Well, your technique could have used a little more improvement, you'd get more force if you changed your mechanical femoral-tibial angle by about five degrees…' Jack shoved him lightly as they walked out of the corridor, followed by the FBI agents and their new prisoners. Mac put up his hands innocently. 'Just pointing out the facts.'

* * *

 **PHOENIX JET**

 **SOMEWHERE OVER THE MOJAVE DESERT**

 **ON-ROUTE TO LA**

* * *

'Seriously, you were incredible. Amazing. Like really, really _amazing._ Not speaking ill of the dead, but…' Bozer held up his hands, something very genuine and admiring and still stunned in his eyes. 'You really gave Amy Winehouse a run for her money.' She was a little too dark-skinned for it to be obvious, but both Mac and Jack swore Riley was blushing. She swatted at Bozer's arm lightly, looking ever-so-slightly bashful. Bozer's expression then shifted, and he pointed at her. 'But you've been holding out on us, Miss Davis! Seriously! How come you've never told us you can _sing_?'

Riley gave a deliberately-nonchalant shrug that didn't fool any of them (and they knew she knew that it didn't, that it wouldn't), but gave a very Riley little grin.

'Hey, a woman's entitled to her secrets…but play your cards right, and I might take some requests.'

Bozer rubbed his hands together and leaned over to the hacker and stage-whispered.

'Well, I was just about to ask _you_ if you had any requests for dinner…'

Jack and Mac just exchanged a glance and affectionate, amused head-shakes.

* * *

 **MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

As Bozer, assisted by Leanna, put together the shrimp po'boys that Riley had requested for dinner and got the first five layers of his really fancy chocolate cake going in the kitchen, Mac fired up the fire-pit and Riley picked up her mom, Jack walked back in from the deck to fetch the beers to put in Mac's self-opening, walking Esky.

(He was really hoping that he wouldn't catch the lovebirds _canoodling_ in the kitchen.)

(There were some things you didn't want to catch your surrogate children doing.)

(Bozer was better than Mac, and far better than Riley, but still…)

(And besides, their _dinner_ was being prepared in the kitchen. Some things, he didn't want this food to witness. _Eww_.)

The door opened, and in stepped Matty. Jack did a double-take.

'You're early, Matty.'

His boss put her hands on her hips.

'Not happy to see me, Jack?' Jack, wisely, just put up his hands, and Matty just smirked, before her expression grew more wry. 'And the paperwork didn't take as long as usual; this was the first Phoenix mission to turn a _profit,_ thanks to Baby Einstein.'

She gestured to Mac, who'd just walked in, a little smudge of grease on his chin.

Jack pointed at the blonde.

'Don't think I've forgotten, brother, we're gonna go all _Rain Man_ next time we get a vacation!'

* * *

Later that evening, Mac, Jack, Bozer, Riley, Leanna, Diane and Matty sat around the fire-pit, playing charades.

(It was Mac, Jack and Matty versus Bozer, Leanna and Riley, with Diane acting as the 'impartial' judge.)

Mac was currently miming something that neither Jack nor Matty (nor anyone else, for that matter) had any idea was.

(He seemed to be miming something falling from a height, then hitting the ground? Possibly? It might also have been something bouncing off the ground, or an elevator or God knows what, knowing Mac.)

'Elevator?'

'Basketball?'

Bozer tapped Leanna and Riley on the shoulder, and Riley nudged her mom, who raised an eyebrow, then smiled and added another four minutes to the clock.

(Mac, Jack and Matty were losing, sixteen to four. And they all knew – except Leanna – from previous experience that charades was one of the very, very few things that Mac was _terrible_ at.)

Bozer, Leanna and Riley then headed into the house, towards the kitchen, to dish up Bozer's eight-layer chocolate cake, which the alarm on his phone had told him should be ready now.

* * *

They came out five minutes later, holding plates with very tall slices of chocolate cake on them, to find Mac and Jack bickering, as Matty and Diane just exchanged a very knowing, fondly exasperated look.

'How in the hell was that a _globe,_ brother?'

'The oldest surviving terrestrial globe is called the Erdapfel, literally _earth apple_ in German. I was miming the famous apple-falling-to-Earth incident that led to Newton's development of his theory of gravitation! _Earth apple_! It's _obvious_!'

Everyone else stared incredulously at him, and Jack opened his mouth to speak, but before the Mac-n-Jack-show started up again (it _was_ really amusing, but they all had their limits), Bozer spoke, holding up the three plates of cake in his hands.

'Seriously amazing eight-layered chocolate, anyone?'

That got many noises of approval, and a _hell, yeah_ from Jack.

After he, Riley and Leanna finished passing out the plates of cake, Bozer sat down next to his BFF, who took a bite of the cake, closed his eyes in bliss and in memory for a moment, then opened them and smiled at Bozer, soft and affectionate.

'Thanks, Boze.'

Bozer nudged him gently with his elbow.

'Anytime, bro. Anytime.'

* * *

AN: Did you guys enjoy the team's romp in Vegas? How many of you were right about Mac's (not so) secret talent(s), I wonder? Or Riley's? Or who Jack was texting? I hope you liked the generally lighter tone of this ep!

I really wanted to include a Mac and Bozer moment in this episode, as well as plenty of what I've apparently now dubbed the Mac-n-Jack-show, after the last episode and its notable lack of the partners being, well, partners! I also felt that the conversation that Mac and Jack have at the start of the ep is pretty key – the revelations about his dad are definitely having a lot of impact on Mac, and how he's going to go about his life and any decisions he'll make in the future, and I really wanted to show that. Also, I really like Jack/Diane and I wanted to develop that further…yes, I have a shipper heart, and hey, it's my fanfic, I'll do what I want! :P (And I'm not restricted by anything like the cost or practicalities of having actors guest star…so I can have 'guest star' characters appear whenever I want, as much was I want!)

Riley can sing because Tristin Mays can (she's a triple threat who can act, sing and dance, apparently – which makes her _almost_ as awesome as Riley :P ); that's where my headcanon started. Other headcanons spontaneously invented while writing this are why Mac likes martinis, coconuts being his favourite nut, and him learning magic tricks at 14 (we know from the show that he has some knowledge about sleight of hand and is a really good pickpocket, so…).

Here's the 'press release' for the next episode:

3.03, Sticky Rice to Glue. The team heads to Singapore to stop a threat to the Korean Peninsula peace talks. How will Mac cope in a country that bans chewing gum? Meanwhile, Jack and Bozer try to work out why Mac has suddenly become a not-terrible patient.

Yes, I've gone for 'inspired by real events' (I started the ep before the talks were cancelled…). As for the question – see the episode title! And ooh…why might Mac suddenly be listening to a doctor? :P

I've had a very tough couple of weeks (seriously, I know Mac's incredibly brilliant, but speaking as someone who does science every day – even if I don't have Mac's talents – he's also very, very lucky that his stuff always works!), and the next few aren't going to be any easier, so I think it'll take at least two weeks for Sticky Rice to Glue to be done. Hopefully, though, fingers crossed, in about a month or so, I'll have a little bit more time to write, so…


	3. Sticky Rice to Glue

AN: I have four exams in the next two weeks (15th, 18th, 19th and 20th of June). That's the bad news. The good news is that after these four exams, only one more exam and I am done with exams FOREVER!

* * *

 **INFIRMARY**

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Mac, wearing a hospital gown (he'd have to stop by his locker to grab the spare change of clothes he kept in there on his way home), reached out to put his hand on the door handle, only to be interrupted by a voice.

A woman's voice.

'Get back into bed, Agent MacGyver.' It was a very firm voice, simultaneously admonishing him for doing something that he wasn't supposed to be doing and warning him off _not_ doing what he was supposed to be doing, which was lying in bed. He turned around, surprised. (He was _very, very_ rarely caught. He'd escaped no fewer than eight different hospitals or medical centres on multiple occasions without any issues, though, admittedly, he'd never attempted to escape the Phoenix infirmary before.) The speaker was a young, pretty woman in a doctor's coat with light brown hair pulled and pinned back into a neat ponytail. She was narrowing her brown eyes at him, arms crossed. His surprise obviously showed on his face, because her expression grew wry for a moment. 'Your reputation precedes you.'

He couldn't help but give a sheepish little smirk at that, before he opened his mouth to protest weakly (not that he really _could,_ since she _had_ caught him in the middle of an escape attempt…), but she tilted her chin up, something fierce in the expression, in her eyes, and pointed at his recently-vacated hospital bed.

Mac sighed, shoulders slumping, even as he trudged back to his bed, voice plaintive.

(It was almost 11 PM. He was exhausted. He'd spent the last five days in Malawi, and he _really, really, really_ wanted to go home and sleep in his own bed.)

(Besides, doctor-patient privilege.)

'I just want to go home, Dr Taylor.'

(He knew her name – Dr Bethany H. Taylor – and several key facts about her – she was 27, had finished high school at 16, like he had, did pre-med at Purdue in three years, followed by medical school at Northwestern, an ER residency in Detroit and a year in Syria with MSF, before being hired by the Phoenix just a couple of weeks ago.)

(Due to the numerous security breaches they'd had in the last year or so, someone – namely Matty – had talked the people in charge – read James MacGyver – into upgrading the Phoenix's infirmary from an infirmary to essentially a hospital, including two operating theatres. As such, they'd hired several new doctors, with ER and/or trauma surgery training.)

(Fact sheets on each new hire had been sent out to all of the agents, in the hope that this would make them more likely to trust – and thus listen to – the medical staff.)

(In Mac's opinion, that had helped. As did the fact that Matty had assured them all that she'd personally vetted – and interrogated – each and every new hire.)

(Honestly, Mac thought, the fact that she'd made it through said interrogation without having run the other way from Matty and the Phoenix or fallen apart meant that Dr Taylor had to be made of much sterner stuff than she looked – she was petite and sweet-faced, looking more youthful than she actually was.)

Her expression grew sympathetic, though no less firm.

'You have bruised kidneys, took a knock to the head, and have too many contusions to count, including what is becoming a rather impressive shiner. I'm sorry, but I _cannot_ let you go home; you need to stay overnight for observation, Agent MacGyver.' He was back in his bed now, and she pulled an alcohol wipe from her coat pocket to reinsert his IV. He looked away as she inserted it, not wanting to see it go in, and barely felt the needle slip back into his vein. She had really good technique. He glanced back over, to find that his IV had been securely re-attached and taped in place, then an X of _Dora the Explorer_ Band Aids had been put over it. He raised an eyebrow in question, and she gave another wry little smile. 'Punishment for your escape attempt.' She narrowed her eyes at him again. 'Try that again, and the consequences will be even worse.' He was pretty sure that would just be more _Dora the Explorer_ Band Aids. Which, she was right, _was_ even worse. He sighed but nodded, and after she checked his monitors and made a note on his chart, she looked back up at him, expression softening again. 'Try and sleep. It'll at least pass the time.'

He toyed with the edge of his blanket.

'I…I can't sleep.'

'Would you like a sedative?' She said that as if she already knew the answer, and he shook his head immediately. She nodded, definitely having anticipated that. 'I can bring you something to read, after I check on Agent Connors and Agent Edwards.'

He offered her a little smile in thanks, and she bustled away to check on the former in the partly curtained-off 'room' next to Mac's (Connors was recovering from a nasty bout of heatstroke and dehydration after a mission to Western Sahara involving him being tortured by terrorists through water deprivation – she helped him drink some Gatorade, gently reassuring him that there was plenty more where that came from and emphasising that there were several bottles of water and Gatorade on his nightstand), then the latter (a former Navy SEAL with a dislocated shoulder who was already snoring away – Mac could hear it clearly, despite the fact that he was on the other side of the infirmary).

About ten minutes later, Dr Taylor came back into Mac's 'room', bearing a large stack of magazines. They were mostly issues of _New Scientist,_ with a few of _The Economist_ mixed in.

He smiled, completely genuinely, as she held them out to him, raising a brow in question. She offered a smile in return, a little more amused, maybe even the tiniest bit gently teasing, perhaps. More the sort of smile he thought she might smile off-duty, compared to that warm, caring, but still professional smile she'd had earlier.

'Your reputation really does precede you.' She narrowed her eyes at him yet again as he took the magazines. ' _No_ escaping.'

'Thanks.' He held up the first of the magazines. 'And I promise, Doc.'

As she nodded, seemingly satisfied, and walked back towards her office, presumably to take a nap before checking on her patients in a couple of hours, Mac firmly pushed away the various half-formed escape ideas that were coalescing in his brain.

Maybe it was the fact that he thought it pertinent to stay on the good side of a doctor whom he'd be seeing regularly, unlike the various doctors at the various hospitals he'd been in over his career. Maybe it was the fact that she was clearly hard-working and very dedicated to her job and her patients and their wellbeing, and being a terrible patient was an awful way of repaying her for that. Maybe it was the fact that he really, really didn't want to wind up covered in _Dora the Explorer_ Band Aids (it was _supremely_ undignified for a grown man who was a covert operative for the US government). Maybe it was the fact that, despite the fact that she was small and seemed kind and sweet, there was definitely something fierce in the way she'd narrowed her eyes at him, tilted her chin.

But no matter the reason, his gut told him that he really, really wanted to stay on her good side.

* * *

 **MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

The next morning, Mac opened his front door and stepped inside his house, to find Jack sitting in the armchair and Riley stretched out on the couch, while Bozer and Leanna giggled at a private joke, their heads close together as his roommate stirred something delicious-smelling on the stove.

Jack made a _tut, tut_ noise (a very exaggerated _tut, tut_ noise) and tapped an imaginary watch on his wrist.

'You're back late, young man.' He threw his hands out rather exasperatedly. 'Seriously, we were expecting you at like, 10 last night!' The older man looked very put-out. 'I even had a lecture all ready for you, with one of my best stories in it too!'

Mac rolled his eyes as he hung his coat up by the door on the polar bear/coat hook.

'Let me guess, the Karachi story, which, A, has _nothing_ to do with listening to medical professionals, and B, I've heard _fifteen_ times.'

Riley nodded, the look on her face suggesting that she'd been subjected to it in his place. Mac shot her a look of sympathy, as Jack pointed at the blonde.

'And _that's_ why I keep telling you it, 'cause you _still_ haven't gotten the point, brother!' Mac and Riley exchanged a startlingly-similar look of great exasperation, which Bozer, if he'd noticed (he was currently very distracted by Leanna and the breakfast stew he was making), would totally have taken as proof that Mac and Riley really were pseudo-siblings, since Jack was their pseudo-dad. Jack threw his hands up. 'Seriously, man, what kept you? You know Phoenix security like the back of your hand!'

(And, it went without staying, he'd of course try to escape.)

(Mac hated being stuck in a hospital or an infirmary. _Hated.)_

(The medics attached to their unit in The Sandbox had gotten migraines because of him. Jack had known that Mac was completely, utterly broken-hearted when he _hadn't_ tried to escape the hospital when Nikki had 'died'. After he'd survived VX gas exposure and had stabbed himself in the leg, Mac had _still_ left the hospital 24 hours earlier than the doctors thought wise, and when Murdoc had shot him, Jack had only managed to prevent his partner's inevitable break-out by staying with him and taking him home early, assuring the medical staff that he'd make sure the younger man took it easy).

Mac just gave a little shrug.

'We have excellent doctors who take their job very seriously.'

Riley, Jack and Bozer (who'd just turned his attention to the others as he plated up the stew, while Leanna made toast) exchanged a glance.

They were well used to Mac being cryptic and mysterious and a little evasive.

(It was frequently annoying, but it was just the way he was. Sometimes, it was because Mac had yet to fully process properly and work out how he felt about something or hadn't actually come up with an idea yet, and so he wasn't _trying_ to be evasive, sometimes it was because he was a generally private person, sometimes it was because he was trying to protect them or not be a burden or a hassle. Or some combination of the above.)

(Meeting James MacGyver had kind of put that all into perspective. Compared to his dad, Mac was practically an over-sharer.)

And, as always, it piqued their interest.

Bozer called out to his best friend after he and Leanna finished plating up breakfast.

'Well, least you're back just in time for breakfast, bro!'

Mac looked a bit sheepish and awkward.

'Uh, sorry, Boze, but I already ate.' He shrugged again. 'Doc insisted on making sure I could keep food down before she'd discharge me.'

(He'd eaten with Agent Connors and Agent Edwards. The former SEAL liked weird flavour combinations – like strawberry jam _and_ cheese on bread – like Jack. Poor Agent Connors had had to be gently cut off from eating watermelon by Dr Taylor.)

Jack and Bozer exchanged another glance, incredulous. Very incredulous.

Riley looked incredulous for just a moment, before something knowing crossed her face, and she made eye contact with Leanna (who had a very similar look on her face), before both women glanced at Jack and Bozer. Leanna gave an indulgent smile and a fondly exasperated head-shake at the two of them (they still looked like Mac had grown two heads), while Riley rolled her eyes, though the gesture was, somehow, no less fond.

Mac, however, missed the whole exchange, because he'd turned his back to the others and started pulling the half of a broken record player, the box of spare Lego and one of the many rolls of duct-tape he had lying around the house from a set of shelves in his living room.

(The magazines Dr Taylor had given him – plus, funnily enough, the _Dora the Explorer_ Band Aids she'd punished him with – had been very inspiring.)

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Matty's expression was particularly serious as Mac, Jack, Bozer and Riley all filed into the war room. She wasted no time in tapping the screen to start their mission briefing, as Mac picked up his customary paperclip and absent-mindedly began to unwind it.

'The CIA has credible intel that a rogue element of the North Korean intelligence services is intending to assassinate a senior South Korean diplomat at the upcoming peace talks.' An image of a Korean man of about sixty, with near-grey hair and a serious expression, appeared on the screen, the caption under his image naming him as Minister Chung, along with a map of Singapore. 'Obviously, their intention is to bring Korean Peninsula relations to a new low.'

Jack shook his head.

'Someone always loses when peace is achieved.'

Mac glanced at his partner, shaking his head, the paperclip in his hands rapidly taking the shape of the Korean Peninsula, notably missing a border between North and South.

'No, everyone wins.' He gave a little nod at the screen as he tossed the paperclip down on the table. 'But some people can't see it. Or won't see it.'

The other four in the room all nodded in agreement, and Matty continued their briefing.

'We can't let the rogue North Koreans succeed, but the US _can't_ be seen to be interfering.' Any sign of meddling or anything even _slightly_ underhand could jeopardize the talks. That was why the CIA had called the Phoenix. Matty looked them all squarely, seriously in the eye. 'If you're caught, you'll be disavowed. There'll be nothing we can do for you.'

Mac and Jack both nodded, about as nonchalantly as someone could about being disavowed. Riley, too, gave a serious little nod, and then they all glanced at Bozer, who was clearly having a bit of a flashback to his very first overseas mission.

(It'd been a _terrible_ mission for a first overseas mission.)

But, he straightened his spine a little and nodded firmly. Decisively.

Matty gave a little nod of acknowledgement and tapped the screen again.

'Unfortunately, the CIA's intel is pretty sparse on details.' Given the huge number of question marks and repetitions of the word 'unknown' on the intel sheet on the screen, that was obvious. Apparently, the CIA had no idea how many assassins, exactly who they were or what means they intended to use to kill the diplomat. 'We're doing our own digging, but you'll be flying pretty blind.'

Jack reached out and clapped a hand on Mac's shoulder.

'Well, we _do_ do our best work on the fly, Matty.'

Riley and Bozer exchanged a look behind Jack's back ( _we_ was probably a little too generous – the improvisation was _generally_ mostly Mac), while the blonde just gave a slightly sheepish little smirk, as if saying, _well, it is true._

Matty raised an eyebrow at them, in a way that they all knew was fond, before continuing.

'You're wheels up in forty...'

* * *

 **A VERY NICE HOTEL**

 **(THIS JOB DOES HAVE ITS PERKS)**

 **SINGAPORE**

* * *

As Mac and Jack sat in the hotel restaurant, pretending to enjoy a leisurely breakfast while they kept a close eye on Minister Chung and his attaches, Jack looked over his coffee cup very pointedly at his partner, clearing his throat repeatedly until Mac finally put down the magazine he was pretending to read (he'd inserted a small piece of reflective foil insulation he'd 'borrowed' from a roll piled up near a building site they'd passed yesterday to serve as a mirror so he could see more angles) and looked at him, an eyebrow raised.

'Want me to throw together some cough drops?'

(He'd meant it a as a joke, but now that he thought about it, a hotel breakfast buffet was pretty far from slim pickings in terms of throat-soothers...)

'Nah, I'm all good, brother.' Jack pointed at him. 'But are _you_ all good? Seriously, man, have you been replaced by aliens or something?'

(In Jack's mind, even though he'd meant it _mostly_ as a joke, that was a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why his partner had suddenly become a not-terrible patient.)

(If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth and all…besides, Jack was a _believer_.)

Mac's eyebrow rose further.

'Turquoise platypus fedora.'

That was said without any inflection whatsoever, and Mac immediately returned to 'reading' his magazine. Jack made a face (maybe his partner really _had_ been replaced by aliens, Mac was weird, but this was seriously weird even for him…), as Bozer's voice rang out over their earpieces.

'Well, he's definitely not been replaced by aliens, Jack. That's our alien-replacement-slash-hijacking password.'

Riley's voice rang out next.

'You and Mac have an _alien-replacement-slash-hijacking_ password?'

She sounded half-incredulous and half- _well-of-course-you-do._

Bozer replied, sounding a bit sheepish, even defensive.

'We were in the 9th grade when we came up with it!'

'And you _remember_ it?'

'Hey, hey, Ri, don't knock it, it's a great idea! We should all set one up-'

'The worst thing is, I know you're not kidding.'

'Well, Miss Non-Believer, now we know who to blame when the aliens hijack one of us and take over the world!'

Mac, eyes scanning the room through his makeshift mirror as he pretended to read an analysis of the current political situation in Malaysia, tuned out Jack, Bozer and Riley's bickering with a very long-suffering internal sigh.

(He wasn't looking forward to when Jack and Bozer worked out that the Doc who'd treated Mac was Dr Taylor.)

(They'd make a mountain out of a molehill, just because she was his age and attractive.)

(It was, a quiet but very persistent voice in his head said, a molehill and not _nothing_ , because, well, she _was_ his age and attractive.)

(He was no Jack, not by a long shot, but like any man who swung that way, he could definitely appreciate an attractive woman.)

(And it'd been a long time.)

(And he was self-aware enough to know that he probably had a bit of a weakness for attractive women and would be a little more inclined to listen to one.)

(But he was absolutely not mentioning it. _Definitely_ not.)

(He was barely admitting it to himself.)

* * *

'Brother, hurry up!'

Mac looked briefly away from the mobile DART mass spectrometer he had in his left hand (his right hand was holding a business card that'd had a few drops of soju carefully extracted from a beautifully gift-wrapped bottle dripped on it in the sample chamber using the tweezers from his Swiss Army knife) and at his partner.

He got why Jack was a little antsy (this was the secure storeroom arranged by the hotel in conjunction with Minister Chung's security detail for any gifts the man was given – and there were quite a few; there was an air of optimism regarding the talks – so they were definitely not meant to be in here, and there was only so long that the distraction they'd arranged with Riley's help would last), but there was only so fast all the gifts could be tested.

'Both I and the mass spec are going as fast as possible, Jack.' The mass spectrometer beeped and Mac looked back down at the screen, expression growing serious. He gestured at the bottle, which was _supposedly_ a gift from a few Korean War veterans, according to the card. Mac would bet a lot of money right now that it was _definitely_ not from Korean War veterans…at least, not from Canadian ones like the card claimed. 'It's poisoned with tetrodotoxin. It's an extremely powerful neurotoxin isolated from various organs of the blowfish.'

Jack let out a low whistle.

'Yeah, that stuff's nasty. Causes death within, what, 22 hours?'

Mac stared at his partner for a brief moment, surprised that Jack even knew enough about tetrodotoxin to have an idea of how long it took to kill (even if he was wrong), before speaking.

(It wasn't that he thought Jack was stupid – he was well aware that Jack was far from it – it was just that science was _not_ his forte. It was part of the reason why the two of them worked so well together; they had complementary skill-sets.)

'Generally, it's closer to between 4 and 6.'

'Really? Guess you really shouldn't trust what you see on TV…' At Mac's slightly-quirked eyebrow, Jack explained. 'There's an episode of _The Simpsons,_ Homer eats a blowfish and he reckons he's gonna die, so tries to finish this bucket list, it's got a title like one of them Dr Seuss books…' Jack looked horrified as a realization dawned on him. '…And I think it aired before you were born.'

Mac gave a teasing little smirk, as Bozer's voice rang out over their comms.

'Bro, you and the old man better get out of there, or you'll have incoming in, like, five.'

Jack looked up at the looped security camera in the corner, shooting Bozer and Riley a glare (he was not old!), as Mac seized the bottle of soju and carefully opened the door a crack.

'Boze, Riley, can you find out who left a bottle of soju for the Minister? The label _says_ it's from Canadian Korean War vets…'

* * *

'…Are you _sure_ the soju's poisoned?' Mac, sitting on the edge of the bed, nodded with great certainty. Bozer gestured to Riley's laptop screen. 'Well, I guess that means the North Koreans start training their spies really, really young?'

There were two teenage Asian girls who couldn't be any older than fifteen on the screen, talking to one of the hotel's receptionists and handing over the bottle of soju. According to Riley's lip-reading program, one of the girls said that they were delivering it on behalf of her grandfather.

Jack shook his head, plopping onto the bed next to the blonde.

'Nah, North Korean spies like to trick civilians into doing their dirty work for 'em. We gotta track down those girls and see what they know.'

It probably wouldn't be much, but it was better than nothing.

Riley nodded, fingernails beginning to clack on her keyboard again.

'On it.'

Mac and Jack got up, to resume keeping an eye on Minister Chung, and Bozer pulled on a pair of gloves and grabbed the bottle of soju.

'Maybe I'll be able to pull something useful off this.'

He wasn't Jill, but he did know some forensics tricks.

* * *

 **HAWKER CENTRE**

 **SINGAPORE**

* * *

Bozer and Riley walked into the hawker centre, moving with a purpose. They made their way over to the table where their intended targets, who were giggling, surrounded by shopping bags, eating chicken rice and drinking bubble tea, sat.

Without a word, the two Phoenix agents sat down opposite the teen girls, expressions serious, both pinning the girls with a _look._

The two girls exchanged a glance, panicked, and one of them got up a little, as if to run.

Bozer leaned a little closer to her.

'I wouldn't do that if I were you.'

The girl swallowed and sat back down, glancing at her friend.

Riley pulled out her phone and pulled up an image of the bottle of soju, showing the girls, before flicking over to the photo of the girls handing the bottle over.

'Five hours ago, you delivered this bottle of soju addressed to Minister Chung.' She paused. 'It contained a deadly poison.' The girls' eyes widened and they looked terrified. Riley's expression softened a little. (She and Bozer had flipped a coin to see who would be bad-cop and who would be good-cop.) 'You're not in trouble. But we need you to tell us who told you to deliver that bottle.'

The two girls exchanged another glance, before one of them spoke, words coming out of her in a rush.

'We had no idea it was poisoned! He told us it was an inside joke with the Minister!'

'He said that his dad and the Minister were, like, old friends or something!'

Bozer and Riley exchanged a glance.

They'd both made their share of bad decisions and errors of judgement as teens, but this was _really_ bad.

The girls seemed to pick up where their thoughts were heading.

'Hey, when a really hot guy gives you 500 bucks to make a delivery, you don't ask questions!'

Riley face-palmed internally. Bozer spoke.

'Can you _describe_ this really hot guy?'

'He looks like Yesung from Super Junior!'

The two teen girls exchanged a starry-eyed look. Bozer and Riley exchanged another glance, and the hacker pulled out her laptop and pulled up a photo of this Yesung, loading it onto her digital 'sketch' program.

She turned the screen around so the girls could see.

' _Exactly_ like Yesung, or do you remember any differences?'

* * *

'…Yeah, the girls don't know much. Some apparently really hot guy who looks like a K-Pop star bribed them. Riley's sending you our composite of him now…' An _I-have-an-idea_ expression appeared on Bozer's face. 'Speaking of bribery, bro…did the Doc _bribe_ you?'

Riley, looking at her laptop, which was running a facial recognition program using the composite photo based on Yesung and every single camera feed in Singapore she could get into (which was an awful lot of feeds), rolled her eyes in exasperation.

Bozer had both managed to hit the nail on the head and miss it completely.

* * *

 **SUPPOSEDLY SECURE PARKING STRUCTURE**

 **SINGAPORE**

* * *

Jack, taking cover behind a sedan, clocked the North Korean agent he'd dragged with him (who happened to be the really pretty boy described by the teenage girls) hard in the jaw, then head-butted him, sending him crumpling to the ground, then ducked out briefly from behind cover to return fire at the North Korean providing cover for the others. He got the man in the right shoulder, causing him to drop his weapon, stopping the steady stream of bullets, then shot the man's colleague, who was diving for the dropped gun, in the knee. He appeared to get an idea, and called out to his partner, who was busily disarming a bomb attached to the underside of a car that was parked three cars away from the Minister's.

'Brother, was the Doc really-'

He didn't get to finish his sentence, because Mac's voice, slightly muffled by the fact that he was under a car, rang out.

' _Not. The. Time!_ '

Jack fired off another shot, hitting the phone that the North Korean agent whom he'd shot in the shoulder had in his hand.

'Hey, I can multitask!'

A car with no plates came screeching up (clearly, Jack had been a little too late in destroying the agent's phone), and the two North Korean agents who were conscious jumped up as best as they could, diving into the car, as Jack ran out from behind cover and fired off several more shots, just missing the tires of the car as it screeched away, breaking every traffic rule in the book.

Jack swore, just as his partner heaved himself out from under the car, expression grim, having deduced what had happened from what he'd heard.

'Bomb's neutralized.'

Jack stalked over to the unconscious pretty-boy North Korean agent, who was just beginning to stir, and picked him up by the collar, as Mac got up.

'Alright, Yesong-'

' _Yesung._ The K-Pop star's name is Yesung. _'_

The man just smirked.

'You lose, Americans.'

He began to convulse, foaming at the mouth, and Jack dropped him. Mac rushed over, as the man emitted a death-rattle and grew still. The blonde brought his fingers to the North Korean's carotid, and glanced up at Jack and shook his head, expression grim. Mac rolled up the man's left sleeve, and carefully pulled off his watch, to reveal a puncture wound, still bleeding slightly, and a thin needle sticking out from the back of the watch.

Jack and Mac stared at the dead man's wrist for a moment, then glanced at each other, the older man speaking.

'I am _so_ glad we don't take the whole _no-talking-if-captured_ thing so seriously.'

* * *

Ten minutes later, Bozer and Riley, in a van that Jill had obtained for them at very short notice (it was _mostly_ legally acquired…) containing all of their equipment, pulled up, to find Mac and Jack bent over the dead North Korean, the blonde with the tweezers from his Swiss Army knife in hand, carefully pulling some fibres off the man's shirt.

Bozer jumped out of the van's driver seat, handing his best friend the DART mass spectrometer, before reaching into the back and grabbing the kit that they used to test for GSR, blood, explosive residue and the like, while Riley hopped out of the passenger seat, her rig at the ready.

 _Thanks to science, there's more than one way to interrogate someone._

 _Might not be as glamourous as hacking someone's brain, and the answers might not be so simple to interpret, and I know I'm biased, but that's pretty awesome, right?_

* * *

Mac, Jack, Bozer and Riley exchanged a glance.

They'd managed to partially reconstruct what was _most likely_ the K-Pop star lookalike's movements over the last few hours using the trace evidence from his clothes and a statistical triangulation program that Riley had written.

From that, they'd managed to extrapolate what his co-workers' future (or, more likely, now _current)_ movements and plans were.

But still, it was extrapolation.

What was _statistically_ likely.

Bozer verbalized what they were all thinking.

'It's a long shot.'

Jack, who was inspecting the magazine of his gun, clicked it back into place.

'It's the best shot we've got.'

* * *

 **TWENTY MINUTES LATER**

 **ROOFTOP WITH A HALF-DECENT LINE OF SIGHT TO A FANCY RESTAURANT**

 **(ONE THAT MINISTER CHUNG HAS A BOOKING FOR IN TEN MINUTES)**

 **SINGAPORE**

* * *

Jack and Mac, pinned behind the partially-open door to the roof by enemy fire, exchanged a glance.

'Brother…'

'Working on it!' Mac chanced a very, very quick glance through the half-open door, then pressed a finger to his earpiece. 'Riley, what are the rooftop dimensions? And how thick is the floor?'

'Fifteen by eighteen by twelve, and two feet of solid concrete, Mac.'

He pursed his lips in thought, brow furrowing a little, and muttered something that sounded mostly like math to Jack under his breath.

'You're not gonna do that thing you did in that hazard in Turkey?'

Mac started running back down the stairs, explaining briefly to his partner as he ran.

(He was trying not to do the whole _I-haven't-figured-it-out-yet-but-it'll-come-to-me,_ running-off-to-start-a-half-formed-plan-without-explaining thing, as best as he could.)

(It was _really, really_ annoying when his dad did it.)

'A, it was a _hisar._ B, no.' Jack couldn't see his face, since he was running down the stairs after Mac, but he could hear the slightly-sheepish smirk in the younger man's voice. 'But…uh, you probably won't like this one either.'

(Jack had complained endlessly about the paperwork that Mac blowing out the floor of the hisar and a whole section of a Turkish dam had given him, and how Mac was turning his hair prematurely grey, with all the scares the younger man kept giving him.)

(Mac understood it for what it _really_ meant.)

( _You're a weird, crazy mad scientist who drives me nuts, but you're_ my _weird-crazy-mad-scientist-who-drives-me-nuts and I love you, man.)_

* * *

As they assembled the specialized gun they'd smuggled into Singapore in pieces on the rooftop (their line of sight wasn't ideal, but the special, explosive bullets they had should ensure that they got the job done…even if there would be a _lot_ of collateral), the three remaining North Korean operatives, two still bleeding from field-dressed wounds, looked down as a tennis ball rolled out onto the roof, stopping at their feet. Another tennis ball appeared, barely a second after the first, and then another, just as quickly, and the uninjured man strode over to the closest ball and nudged it with his foot.

Or, at least, he was about to, when the ball exploded with a huge bang, releasing a gas that stung at their eyes like chilli.

* * *

As Minister Chung's bodyguards escorted their boss into the restaurant, alert as always, they heard the bang in the distance, and instantly, two tackled the Minister into the ground, covering him with their own bodies, while the other two pulled out their weapons, already aiming towards the building sort-of across the road from the corner of the restaurant, where they'd pin-pointed the sound as originating from.

* * *

The moment Mac's makeshift chilli-oil-based flash-bang-tear-gas grenades detonated, Mac and Jack rushed onto the roof, both wearing very strange-looking sunglasses. The sunglasses had pieces of cut-up rubber gloves taped to them, and the mutilated gloves were stuck to their faces with Band Aids to form a seal, and the Phoenix agents were both wearing rags over their noses and mouths, too.

Quick as a flash, Mac used his momentum from running onto the rooftop to his advantage and shoved one of the North Koreans, who was already stumbling, stunned by the grenade and with his eyes screwed shut, with his hip and shoulder, before pushing his advantage by bracing his hands on the conveniently-placed railing and kicking the man in the stomach with both feet towards his partner. After shooting the North Korean operative whose knee he'd wounded earlier through the calf of his other leg, sending him dropping to his knees (or, rather, one knee and one foot), Jack punched the badly winded man that Mac sent his way squarely in the jaw, causing him to drop like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Mac, meanwhile, dove for the modified sniper rifle that was already mounted on a stand, and rapidly inspected it and disassembled it just enough to neutralize it. Then, taking advantage of what he had, Mac swung the rifle at the enemy operative who was on his knees, while Jack took one step forward and roundhouse-kicked the gun out of the third North Korean's left hand (he'd been shooting with his right hand earlier, which was why Jack had shot him in the right shoulder earlier, but clearly, he was either ambidextrous or had trained enough to be able to shoot with either hand), then stepped in, grabbed the man's jarred wrist none-too-gently, pulled him in and head-butted him, knocking him out.

Mac, who was already searching the two already-unconscious North Koreans to remove any suicide devices like the one that their colleague had had, looked up at Jack as the last of the smoke and gas cleared, pulling down his improvised gas mask.

'A head-butt, _really_?'

Jack began to haul the unconscious man at his feet towards the other two, though not before removing the man's watch carefully.

'Hey, don't knock the head-butt, man! It's a classic, and you can't deny it's effective!

'Remind me to explain to you the consequences of repeated head trauma. I'm pretty sure there's a documentary centring on the NFL on the topic…' The blonde's expression grew more wry, teasing. Bringing in some of that levity that'd gotten them through so many horrific situations remarkably mentally healthy, something which they all deserved credit for (or, perhaps, the _combination_ of them deserved credit for). 'Though, maybe it's too late for you. Sure would explain those rambling stories that go nowhere and the terrible analogies and maybe even the puns…'

Jack muttered something under his breath about young whippersnappers who had no respect for their elders or the wisdom of their elders.

Mac just smirked a little wider.

 _Right now, you might be wondering if I'm going to quote Jack to Bozer and Riley verbatim later._

 _My answer: what kind of question is that?_

* * *

'…I've just sent in an anonymous email with everything we've got to the relevant Singaporean authorities. I've attached your coordinates. Mac, Jack, you ready for me to call in for ex-fil yet?'

Riley's voice rang out over their comms as Mac and Jack put the finishing touches on the extremely secure restraints (the North Koreans were clearly extremely well-trained, and they needed them to be there and non-threatening when the authorities showed up) that Mac had designed (on the fly, using assorted shoelaces, belts and a couple of paperclips, as well as assorted bits and bobs cannibalized from the North Koreans' sniper rifle).

'Uh…' Mac spoke, thinking out loud. '…I need some adhesive.'

'Want me to go find some gum, brother?'

The blonde shook his head.

'It's banned here.'

Jack looked shocked at first, then a slow smirk spread across his face.

'Oh, welcome to your second-worst nightmare…'

(Obviously, a place that banned paperclips would be Mac's worst nightmare.)

Mac looked down towards the street (pushing the rush of fear that that produced in his brain firmly aside and into a locked box in his mind), eyes catching on the signs advertising a hawker centre a third of a block away.

He handed the belt buckle and bolt carrier he was holding to his partner, then ran towards the stairs, taking them two at a time.

'I'll be back in ten, I need to buy some sticky rice!'

Jack, drawing his gun, as the first of the North Koreans began to weakly stir, shouted after his partner.

'I know you got a real fast metabolism and you're practically young enough to be a growing boy and all, but now is not the time for dinner, man!'

Mac, already two stories down (though he could still hear Jack clearly – Jack was many things, but a quiet talker was not one of them), rolled his eyes in a way that could only be described as fondly exasperated.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, the now-barely-conscious North Koreans securely cuffed to the roof railing by their wrists and their ankles, their field dressings checked and fixed up as needed, Mac and Jack made their way down the stairs as Riley texted them the directions to their ex-fil site.

Jack was eagerly digging into the leftover sticky rice, and talking with his mouth full.

'…This is real good grub, man. Real good.' He held the box out to Mac. 'Want some?'

Mac, unfortunately, happened to get a good look at the masticated rice in the older man's mouth, which was not very good for the appetite.

'Singapore _is_ a world-famous foodie destination.' He held up a hand. 'And, uh, no thanks, I'm good.'

* * *

 **PHOENIX JET**

 **SOMEWHERE OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN**

 **ON-ROUTE TO LA**

* * *

'Is one of the new Docs really scary?'

'Or does Doc do a really good impression of your grandpa's _I'm-disappointed-in-you_ voice?'

Jack and Bozer glanced between one another, still speculating as to why Mac had suddenly become a not-terrible patient (he couldn't tell them now wasn't the time _now_ , since their mission was done and all), then at the blonde, who was shaping a paperclip into a stick of gum.

(Riley, meanwhile, rolled her eyes at the scene as she texted Billy.)

(Why were most men so _stupid_ reasonably frequently?)

Mac tossed down the stick-of-gum paperclip and began to shape another paperclip into an ECG line.

 _Despite her small size and sweet, adorable appearance, I have no doubt that Dr Taylor can be scary when she wants to be._

 _Look, my boss is Matty Webber, known as Matty the Hun behind her back, and she's four feet tall and one of the most terrifying people I've ever met. Of course I don't correlate size with scariness._

 _Besides, correlation is not causation._

 _And I'm self-aware enough and man enough to admit that my being a terrible patient is extremely annoying and potentially even stressful for the medical personnel who have to deal with me._

 _I know I've got my share of bad habits, and recent events have really driven that home for me._

 _Nothing like seeing your worst traits in someone else to motivate you to work on self-improvement._

 _I'm never going to be one for plans or not making things up on the fly. I'm probably always going to be a terrible patient. And let's face it, at this point, I've probably got no hope of changing my habit of improving or fixing things without their owner's permission. Or, for that matter, commandeering things without permission when I get caught up in an idea._

 _In my defence, most of the time it's to protect people, save lives, save the world, that sort of thing._

 _And most of the time, I do remember to apologize afterwards, when possible anyway. Eventually._

… _Yeah, at least I admit I've got my flaws?_

 _Anyway, back to the point. I probably won't manage to break these habits._

 _But I can try._

 _And I really should._

Outwardly, Mac shrugged, addressing Jack and Bozer as he finished his paperclip ECG line.

'We have excellent doctors who take their jobs very seriously. It's very rude to make their lives harder.' His expression grew more wry. 'Also, pissing off someone who has, A, ready and regular access to both me and very sharp objects, and B, the ability to use them expertly on me, is _not_ a good idea.'

Jack and Bozer studied Mac for a moment, then glanced at each other, then shrugged, seemingly accepting that explanation.

(Riley was thankfully distracted from the overwhelming urge to face-palm by Billy's reply.)

'Well, brother, you _are_ full of good ideas. Well, except for that time in Karachi, and Cairo, and Tehran was a bit iffy, and that time in Bosnia with the plane, and we can't forget that time you channelled that kids' movie…'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

The war room was already occupied when Mac, Jack, Bozer and Riley walked in.

'…An average of 2.34 Phoenix agent suffers non-accidental poisoning every month.'

Dr Taylor indicated something on the tablet that Matty was holding as she spoke.

'We really should keep this list of antidotes to common poisons on hand.' The speaker, a tall, muscular black man with very close-cropped hair (they all recognized him as Wilson, a former Pararescue turned Phoenix agent and field medic), gestured to Dr Taylor and the freckled, red-haired man in a lab coat who was wringing his hands repeatedly next to him (Ritchie, the Phoenix's agoraphobic, germophobic biological and chemical weapons expert). 'Doc and I triaged Ritchie's list, we think we've balanced cost and practicality with keeping our agents safe from any potential toxin.'

Matty finished reading something on her tablet, before she looked up at Dr Taylor, Wilson and Ritchie. Dr Taylor, meanwhile, had looked up as soon as the newly-returned agents had walked in, and looked them up and down, inspecting them for injury.

Mac gave a wry little grin and held his hands up.

'No need for Band Aids, Doc. For either reason.'

She gave a little smile in return, as Jack and Bozer exchanged a glance, realization _finally_ dawning on their faces.

Riley stifled a snort (their expressions were hilariously similar) and leaned closer to Bozer and Jack, muttering for their ears only.

'Took you long enough.'

(It was _obvious._ Mac had a serious weakness for really intelligent, beautiful women with plenty of spirit. She could think of one reason, and only one reason, why Mac would suddenly become a good patient.)

* * *

 **DIANE DAVIS' RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

Jack grinned, the expression soft, as Diane opened the door. He leaned over to kiss her cheek, and she smiled, sweet and slow, with a touch of something _knowing_ in there, as if she could see right _through_ him, into his soul, into the emotions swirling around there.

(Jack Dalton was no novice with women, not at all. He was no novice with _this_ woman either…but somehow, he felt a little bit like he was a teenager picking up his Prom date again.)

(Maybe it was the _weight_ of this. The importance.)

(Not just the importance, the weight, that came from the fact that they both knew, given their history, given how important Riley was to Jack, that there was no way that this slowly-growing thing between them could be anything but serious. Anything but a genuine attempt at being each other's right ones.)

(But some other sense of importance…something that made Jack feel like it was Destiny or Fate or God or one of those things that Mac didn't believe in but Jack was convinced _had_ to be influencing their lives that they'd found each other again, that this spark, this connection between them had been renewed…or, perhaps, had never quite died in the first place.)

He held out the slightly-untidily wrapped parcel in his hands.

(He wasn't good at wrapping presents – not like Bozer or Mac, but he hadn't wanted to ask them for help.)

(This, he felt, was something that he had to do himself.)

Diane smiled, something fond and exasperated and a little teasing and knowing in her gaze as she looked at the present, before unwrapping it, to reveal a beautiful silk scarf with a batik pattern.

'I saw it and thought of you.'

(He really had. The scarf, in a shop window, had caught his gaze as he and Mac had headed to the ex-fil coordinates, and Jack had made a quick unscheduled stop.)

Diane's smile widened a little, as she draped the scarf around her neck. Coincidentally, it matched excellently with the navy-blue blouse she was wearing. Then, she leaned up and pressed a kiss to his cheek, right next to the corner of his mouth.

'Thank you, Jack.'

He smiled, soft and sweet and slow and a tiny bit smug, before exaggeratedly offering her his arm to lead her towards where he'd parked downstairs.

(His mama had raised him to be a proper southern gentleman.)

(Whether she'd succeeded…well, sometimes, that was up for debate.)

(But now wasn't one of those times.)

* * *

'Your Shelby Cobra...'

Diane smiled a little wider (and a little more knowingly – she was well aware what this car meant to Jack) as they came up to Jack's car.

Jack gave a smirk that was really far softer, far more affectionate, far tenderer, than one would expect a smirk to be.

'Gotta take my best girl out in my best car.'

* * *

AN: Did you guys like the team working behind the scenes for peace on the Korean Peninsula? Or Jack and Diane's progressing relationship? How about Dr Taylor, and Jack and Bozer's ridiculous quest? (I hope you guys like how she was introduced; if you've read _Every End is a Beginning,_ this is a very different introduction, I feel, but Mac's attitude towards attractive women is very, very different in this universe!) I know that in canon, there's nothing to indicate that Mac is a terrible patient, but when I first started writing _MacGyver_ fics, it seemed to be something that everyone accepted as a headcanon, and it's persisted in my brain! My personal favourite scene in this episode is probably Bozer and Riley interrogating the teen girls, and I had the most fun writing yearning-to-face-palm!Riley!

DART stands for direct analysis in real time. It's a mass spectrometry technique that allows analysis without sample prep (which is seriously _amazing_ , as someone who's done her share of mass spec sample prep!), just off things like business cards or clothing or really any surface (instead of having to extract the sample and dissolve it etc.). I don't think that mobile DART mass spectrometers actually exist, but let's pretend they do in this universe (maybe Mac invented them!)! Mac's alien hijacking password is a _Phineas and Ferb_ reference (I headcanon that Mac and Bozer have a bit of a soft spot for the show, for obvious reasons). Wilson, Ritchie, Agent Edwards and Agent Connors are characters from my _Every End is a Beginning_ AU, and Singapore really does ban chewing gum (apparently it's only available on prescription there – for example, nicotine gum for quitting smoking). Yesung is a member of the K-Pop boyband Super Junior; some of my classmates from high school were massive fans!

Here's the 'press release' for the next episode:

3.04, Lollipops to Sleeping Gas. Mac, Jack, Bozer and Riley team up with Leanna to protect a US Senator who stands for everything Mac opposes. Leanna puts the mission above everything else, causing tension between her and Bozer.

Anyone who has read any recent fics of mine probably knows which way this is going to go…and yes, as the summary hints, I'm going to get a _little_ bit political in the next episode. Without giving (too many) spoilers, I am trying very hard to not preach on a soapbox or anything like that, or to denigrate anyone's political beliefs. I am trying to make a somewhat-political (but not partisan, if that makes sense) point (partly because I want to challenge myself, and partly because I've wanted to write a story in which Mac is in this situation and is very _Mac_ about it for a long time), which I think is a 'noble, idealistic, western-liberal-democratic' sort of point, which I think shouldn't be terribly divisive among you guys, given the nature of the show…


	4. Lollipops to Sleeping Gas

**AUSTIN**

 **TEXAS**

 **(THEY'RE DEFINITELY HELPING TO KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD)**

* * *

'Brother, this is the _worst_ idea you have ever had!'

Jack cursed as he narrowly avoided over-balancing and falling off his unicycle, pulling the itchy, rainbow afro off his head and tossing it onto the windscreen of the car being driven by one of the bad guy's goons that was in hot pursuit of the partners, before pulling the gun from the waistband of his poofy clown pants and shooting out the tires.

Meanwhile, Mac, also dressed as a clown, complete with the exaggerated white-and-red makeup, and riding a unicycle (much better than Jack – it wasn't his first time on one, though he and Bozer had sworn to never, ever tell that story), tossed something (it appeared to be based on one of those really long balloons for balloon animals and his foam red nose) at the axel of the front wheel of the motorbike being ridden by another goon, causing the man to crash out, taking out another of the motorcycle-riding goons chasing them.

'Yeah, it's definitely up there…'

 _It is, however, definitely not the worst idea I've ever had._

 _The Football Field Incident might just take that cake. Or the Incident that got me kicked out of the Boy Scouts._

 _Or maybe even Cairo._

 _But if I don't think of something soon…well, this could start moving up the list._

Mac looked up and ahead, and a half-formed idea crystallized out of his brain.

'Jack, left here!'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'I can't believe there aren't any pics!' Bozer, aghast, turned to Riley (who'd been in Austin, albeit in the van, with Mac and Jack, while Bozer had been working on a prosthesis for Agent Torres from the Edwards team back at the Phoenix), spreading his hands out. 'Come on, Riley, I thought we had each other's backs!'

Riley shook her head, but raised her hands anyway in a sort-of apology.

'I'll remember next time, Bozer. Promise.'

Jack, meanwhile, shot Mac a look.

'But it _ain't gonna happen_ _again,_ is it, brother?'

Mac's expression grew very strange, as if he was halfway between promising that it wouldn't (it'd been _highly_ undignified and really one of his worst ideas ever) and being pedantic about the fact that he couldn't exactly promise that.

At that moment, the four of them walked into the war room, which was already occupied by Matty and Leanna, who smiled and waved at Bozer, mouthing _surprise!_

It was definitely a surprise.

As far as he knew, Leanna was supposed to be in Detroit, on a mission to…well, he actually had no idea. But he did know that she was meant to be in Detroit and wasn't going to be back for at least another three days.

But of course Bozer was delighted to see his baby three whole days earlier (at least!), particularly since it looked like she was going to be working this mission, whatever it was, with them.

Matty turned and tapped the screen, as Bozer moved to stand next to Leanna, while Mac reached for a paperclip from the bowl on the table.

On the screen, an image of a grey-haired man with a very charismatic smile in a smart suit appeared.

'Michigan Senator Marcus Hicks was attacked in Detroit by an unknown assailant or assailants in a failed assassination attempt seven hours ago.'

Leanna spoke up, tapping the screen, bringing up a video of an exploding vehicle in a motorcade.

'The explosion took out his entire security detail.'

Matty continued.

'The Senator is currently in a secure location, but he has several engagements over the next couple of days that he refuses to cancel.' The look on her face suggested that Matty had _tried_ to convince him (as persuasively as she could, given that he was a US Senator, and there were lines she couldn't cross), but he'd stubbornly dug in. Mac, fiddling with his paperclip without looking at it, adopted a sardonic expression. From what he knew of Senator Hicks, the man was _not_ open to changing his mind, at all, once it was made up. Even in the face of common sense and evidence. 'Because of the fact that a bomb was planted under one of the Senator's vehicles, there are suspicions that it might have been an inside job. There's no time to vet a new security detail, so Mac, Jack, you're up. You'll be wheels up in twenty.' Mac and Jack nodded seriously, Mac tossing a paperclip down on the table shaped like the General Motors logo. 'Riley, Bozer, Leanna, you and Jill will be working to identify the attackers and figure out their next move…'

* * *

Riley, Bozer and Leanna filed in to the conference room that Jill had set up in, the hacker walking a little way ahead of the couple to give them a bit of relative privacy as they talked, heads close together. She called out to her fellow analyst (even if Riley was very much a field analyst and Jill was decidedly not), as she walked up towards the big screen that Jill had set up.

'Start with assembling a list of all the people who have something against Senator Hicks?'

Jill spoke without looking up from her laptop.

'It's going to be a _really_ long list.' She turned briefly as she reached down to grab a cord, shooting Leanna a wry grin. 'Just like your Sacramento case from last month.'

The blonde technical analyst obliviously returned to setting up, crouching down to plug in the cord and turning away from them, as Bozer turned to Leanna with a confused expression.

'Sacramento? You were _in_ Sacramento last month?'

Leanna looked a bit uncomfortable, shifting her weight form one leg to the other. She opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off by Jill, who was still under the table.

'Yeah, and she seriously kicked butt. Those arms dealers didn't know what…' Jill trailed off as she got up and took in the expressions on everyone's faces. Leanna was still uncomfortable, Bozer looked a little hurt and Riley was pointedly not looking at the couple. '…But I don't think I should be telling you that, it's classified. Sort of. Somewhat.'

Riley was now shooting Jill a _look._ The blonde analyst, however, had already realized her mistake and was now looking very sheepish and apologetic and rather like she wanted the floor to swallow her up.

Leanna glanced over at her boyfriend, reaching out and putting a hand on his arm.

'It was just for about ten hours.' She let go of Bozer's arm and gestured to the screen, which now displayed a cloned copy of Senator Hick's emails. 'Jill, do we have access to his calls, texts and snail mail records too?'

'Uh…working on the snail mail, but calls and texts are go…'

* * *

 **SECURE LOCATION**

 **SOMEWHERE IN DETROIT**

* * *

'Senator Hicks, I'm Jack Dalton, ex-Delta, ex-CIA.' He gestured to Mac. 'This is Angus MacGyver, ex-MIT, ex-Army EOD.'

Mac nodded at the Senator, before speaking.

'Apologies for having to interfere with your schedule; we got here from LA as fast as we could.'

Senator Hicks looked very unimpressed and muttered just _slightly_ too loud for it to have been only to himself.

'Great, half my protection detail's a barely-grown-up leftie Californian. I feel _so much safer.'_

That was said very sarcastically. Jack could _feel_ his partner bristling.

(Sure, Jack knew that Mac disagreed with the Senator's politics – vehemently. _Very_ vehemently.)

(But even if he didn't necessarily seem like it all the time, Mac _was_ a professional.)

(And Mac was an idealist.)

(And above all that, Mac was a _good man_. The very _best_ of men.)

Still, the blonde drew himself up to his full height and looked the Senator dead in the eye.

'True, you'd never get my vote, Senator. But you're a representative of the American people, elected by their will. I've sworn my life to defend this country, her Constitution, her people and their values.' Mac paused, holding the older man's gaze for a moment. 'I'd give my life for yours if necessary.'

With that, Mac turned away to start doing his thing with the safehouse's television. Jack winced internally at the inevitable expense report.

(Matty had been cagey about exactly _who_ this safe house belonged to. Jack _really_ hoped it wasn't the DEA. They had the _worst_ expense report procedures.)

The Texan also watched the Senator closely.

Something that he would definitely call respect had flickered briefly across the man's face for a moment as Mac had made his dramatic declaration (which Jack really, really, really hoped would not come to pass, and would do everything he could to prevent it from being so).

It'd quickly flickered away, overcome by scepticism, cynicism, even just plain _dislike._

Still, Jack hid a little smile.

He'd seen Mac win over countless doubters.

He had faith in their boy.

(Who _wouldn't_ be won over? He was _Mac_.)

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…Mormons in general, apparently, the congregations of over one hundred mosques, temples, churches and synagogues…'

Focused on her laptop, Jill reeled off a list of people that the Senator had apparently pissed off.

'…Pro-choice activists, pro-lifers…'

Bozer made a very confused face, and glanced at Riley, who'd spoken.

'How do you piss off _both_? Isn't that, like, contradictory?' Riley's expression seemed to show that most of her agreed with him about the absurdity of the situation, and just turned her laptop screen a little so that he could see the video on it. Bozer's face grew more scrunched-up. 'Oh, _that's_ how. _Really_ not a good way to convince people to your viewpoint, man.'

Leanna looked up from her laptop.

'Hundreds of scientists and science educators have signed an open letter opposing him, he's also pissed off anti-anti-vaxxers…'

'And gun control activists.'

'Several feminist organizations.'

'Economists.'

'Four large corporations.'

'Most of Silicon Valley.'

'Animal rights activists, several concerned mothers' groups…'

'Associations of doctors, nurses and paramedics…'

'And politicians from all sides.' Bozer turned his laptop around to show the three women. 'Seriously. He's united Democrats, Republicans and Greens.'

'The Free Palestine and BLM Movements have campaigned against him…'

'So have prisoners' rights advocates and death penalty abolitionists.'

Bozer shook his head.

'Seriously, it'd be easier to list the people who _don't_ hate him.'

Leanna gave a wry little smile.

'Maybe we should tell Matty to pull Mac off his protection detail.'

(She couldn't imagine that he would be happy, having to protect a man who was anti-gun control, anti-science, anti-intellectual and very much pro-war, who preferred to use brute force, collateral be damned, rather than being clever and precise because the only acceptable collateral was none, who thought that criminals from murderers to rapists to drug dealers should be executed, rather than believing that no-one should die for their crimes, because an eye for an eye just made the whole world blind.)

(And she was right.)

(But she was _also_ so very wrong.)

Leanna's joke fell very flat.

Jill shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Riley shot Leanna a _look._ And that hurt and little bit of anger flared in Bozer again, causing a corresponding flare of that tension between him and Leanna to rise again.

(Sure, he kinda got why Leanna didn't share much about her work with him. A lot of the stuff they did was actually classified, but he knew – because he worked for the exact same agency – that there were also plenty of things that she _could_ share with him. Matty believed that they worked better with people they cared about. Matty also believed that they worked better when they didn't keep unnecessary secrets from their team, and he and Leanna _were_ a team in more ways than one, even if her missions didn't often overlap with his.)

(She could definitely have told him that she'd been in Sacramento that day he couldn't reach her at all. Heck, she could have mentioned – without any details, if that made her feel more comfortable – that she'd kicked serious butt that day.)

(He'd have made her those crepes with strawberries and chocolate and hazelnut spread that she loved so much. They could've had had a celebration, because he was seriously proud of his amazing, super-badass, super-hot girlfriend.)

(That was probably why her joke, her little dig, not that she'd meant it that way, at his BFF sparked such a reaction.)

'Yeah, he disagrees with everything the Senator's got to say. But Mac won't let anything happen to him on his watch.'

With that, Bozer got up and headed towards the break room for some coffee. Leanna, looking very uncomfortable (though not as uncomfortable as poor Jill) and seemingly kicking herself internally, bit her lip, and glanced at her boyfriend's departing back, then back at Riley, as if she was hoping for some advice, a clue, a hint.

Riley (without complete certainty – she hadn't quite seen Bozer like this before, not even when he'd found out about Mac's – and by extension, hers and Jack's – secret double life) shook her head a little.

Something in her gut told her that it would _not_ be good for Bozer or Leanna or their relationship for them to talk before they'd calmed down a little.

* * *

 **NRA-SPONSORED EVENT**

 **DETROIT**

* * *

Jack glanced at his partner with (barely) disguised concern as the two of them cased the room as the Senator prepared to give the keynote speech.

(Jack himself was, on balance, a fan of guns and the 2nd Amendment, even if he'd been shot at far more times than he'd like.)

(He had to fight fire with fire, after all. And besides, he was a military brat who'd grown up in Texas and his mom's pa had been a rancher, and he _was_ a massive fan of Bruce Willis to boot.)

(But even he was a little uncomfortable with the firepower that was on sale to the general public here.)

(He wasn't convinced – not at all – that the general public should have access to assault rifles.)

(Assault rifles were good for only one thing. Unless you were Mac, in which case they were probably good for more than a dozen things that no-one else could think of and none of which involved shooting someone.)

(Jack believed in the right to bear arms. But he also believed that that great power came with a great responsibility.)

(The greater the power of the firearm, the greater the responsibility.)

(Most people, unfortunately, simply didn't have the willingness or the ability or the training to bear that much responsibility.)

If _he_ was a little uncomfortable, he couldn't possibly imagine how uncomfortable Mac must be feeling.

(Mac was, to put it lightly, _not_ a fan of guns beyond admiring their engineering.)

(He was a government agent who refused to carry, and before that, he'd been a solider who'd done the bare minimum with firearms that the Army would allow.)

(People shot at him all the time; Mac refused to shoot back.)

(He was a strong advocate of less-lethal technologies, and spent a significant portion of his time contributing to maintaining the Phoenix's cover as a think-tank improving said technologies, working to get them to the point where they really could be a practical replacement for lethal means.)

The blonde, to Jack's practiced eyes, definitely looked uncomfortable.

He looked definitively more uncomfortable as he passed a stand with a man dressed in some kind of furry mascot costume advertising AK-15s.

Still, Mac was silent and pulled his eyes away from the (admittedly rather horrifying, even in Jack's opinion) sight, continuing to scan the room for any threats to their primary.

Jack gave a little smile.

That was his boy.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'Guys, I've got something…'

Riley tapped a few keys on her laptop, and a webpage titled, simply, _The Movement,_ appeared on the big screen.

There were several banners on the page, including a _Stop Keystone_ one, a _BLM_ one, a _March for Our Lives_ one and a _Free Palestine_ one.

Jill, who was now searching through the website on her own laptop using an algorithm she'd written to search for certain keywords, nodded in agreement.

'There's an entire thread devoted specifically to raging about Senator Hicks…'

Leanna, who was reading off the big screen, which now displayed said thread (which had a lot of very, very heavy criticism of the man – some quite rational, sensible and inevitable, given the firebrand Senator's controversial views, but a lot more that was simply insults or even threats), nodded, and indicated several names on the screen.

'These four users here, based on their comments, they fit the profile for taking this into the real world…'

Riley and Jill nodded.

'Tracking them down.'

* * *

 **NRA-SPONSORED EVENT**

 **DETROIT**

* * *

As the Senator held a private meeting with a senior NRA member (who also happened to be his brother-in-law) in a room whose door was currently being guarded by Jack and a security system built by Mac earlier, using bits of that hopefully-not-DEA-safehouse's TV, the blonde monitored the rest of the expo for any potential threats towards Senator Hicks.

As he walked along one of the rows of displays (faux) casually, he didn't see anything that could be a threat (as had been the case all day long), but he _did_ see a bearded man of about Jack's age struggling with a broken table.

(It was one of those folding tables, and it seemed that the mechanism that unfolded and locked the legs had broken, and so, the table was very lopsided.)

Mac, without even really thinking about it, made his way over to the man swearing at the display table.

'Mind if I take a look?'

The man eyed him suspiciously, then incredulously for a moment, before coming to a decision and nodding.

'Knock yourself out, kid, the damn thing's just a piece of junk.'

Mac was already half-underneath the table, carefully examining the mechanism.

'Eh, I wouldn't bin it just yet.' He popped out slightly from under the table. 'Got a pen?'

* * *

Eighty-four seconds later, the table was fixed (using some parts salvaged from a pen advertising a gun shop downtown and a couple of paperclips from Mac's pocket), and the stall owner gave a rather impressed (albeit very surprised) nod, before glancing over at Mac and giving a slightly deeper, grateful nod, touching the brim of his _Rick's Guns_ baseball cap briefly.

Mac nodded back and continued on his way.

 _I spend my life trying to help people._

 _Not just help the people I like or the people I agree with, but people._

 _No terms, no conditions, no fine print, as my grandfather put it._

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

There were four photos with names and locations underneath them on the flatscreen.

Shawn Kane, nineteen. An African-American college student from Detroit.

Jacob Holden, eighteen. Brunette, green eyes, from Indianapolis, getting his contractor license.

Adriana Chen, twenty, who sported a harsh undercut with electric-blue streaks and was a student at Northwestern.

And Ora Ramirez, sixteen, a high school student in Orange County, who _really_ reminded Riley of her sixteen-year-old self, from the piercings to the way she looked at the camera to her hacking skills.

These were the four members of the so-called _The Movement_ forum who fit the profile for taking their grievances to the real world.

They'd uncovered encrypted messages between the four of them that were pretty concrete evidence that they were behind the attack on the Senator.

The messages also told them two more things that they all really wished weren't so.

Firstly, the failed attack was, as they'd all suspected, not _really_ a failure. It'd achieved its aim; taking out the Senator's security team. There was another attack on its way, the real one, but unfortunately, the four had taken even greater precautions with that and they hadn't been able to find any details, though they all knew it'd be soon.

(They'd alerted Mac and Jack, sent them everything they had, even if it wasn't all that much.)

Secondly, it seemed that Ora Ramirez, even though she was only sixteen, was the ringleader of the group of teenage terrorists.

Riley, Jill, Bozer and Leanna exchanged a glance.

They'd had to do a lot of things over their careers that they'd rather not, because of the demands of their job.

They accepted that.

But still, interrogating a teenage girl, _breaking_ her to get necessary, life-saving intel…

* * *

 **ON-ROUTE TO A SHOPPING MALL**

 **LA**

* * *

As Bozer drove them towards the shopping mall where Jill and Riley had tracked Ora Ramirez to, Leanna stared out the window, the silence between them stretching thin and tense.

Eventually, Bozer, being Bozer, broke it.

'I'm sorry for overreacting earlier.'

Leanna glanced over at her boyfriend, her expression softening a little.

'I'm sorry too, I should have read the room.' Leanna paused, hesitating for a long moment. 'And…I'm sorry for not telling you anything about Sacramento.'

Her second apology didn't feel quite as genuine, quite as meant, as her first.

(Even though she and Bozer had been in spy school together, that'd only been three weeks. Leanna had been trained in a very different school of spying, one where rules were there for a reason, one where professionalism was vital, and keeping your lips sealed, keeping everything that was top secret or classified or compartmentalized so, was the most important thing of all.)

(Keeping in touch with Bozer was the most rebellious, most rule-breaking thing she'd ever done in her life.)

(It'd been worth it, every moment, every risk. He brought out a side of her that she hadn't let out for a very long time. It was just something about him.)

(But it was far out of her comfort zone.)

(Leanna believed that, despite her and Bozer's relationship, if it wasn't need-to-know for him, he didn't need to know. Because she knew it was important to him, because compromise was vital to any relationship, she gave that a little leeway, and told him a little more than she'd have if not for that relationship…but clearly, it wasn't enough for him.)

(But she didn't know if she _could_ share any more. It didn't sit well with her.)

(The spy game was dark and dangerous and full of lies and webs and secrets. There were bright spots, innocent spots – rare as they were – like, it seemed, Bozer's team, Bozer's _family…_ but Leanna knew they were the exception, not the rule.)

(You had to do things you didn't want to do. Things you weren't proud of, so you could do things you would be proud of, or things you _had_ to do.)

(It was part of this life.)

(And Leanna had graduated spy school second in her class. She was made for it.)

Bozer pulled into the mall parking lot.

The air didn't feel quite cleared.

That tension between them still seemed to stretch.

The young couple pushed that aside, putting on their game faces.

They had a job to do.

* * *

 **SHOPPING MALL**

 **LA**

* * *

'Ora Ramirez?'

The teen girl looked up as Leanna and Bozer approached her, swore, and took off running.

As they gave chase, Bozer and Leanna shared a glance, then she went left and he went right, veering apart to cut her off.

Bozer pressed a finger to his earpiece as he ran.

'Riley…'

'Left at the Hot Topic, then right at the escalators…'

* * *

 **VA CENTRE**

 **DETROIT**

* * *

Mac and Jack stood just a few feet behind the Senator as he talked with several vets, shaking hands and listening to stories.

They were both on high alert, keeping an eye out for potential threats, especially the three teenagers whose pictures Riley had sent them less than an hour ago.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Leanna walked into the interrogation room that Ora Ramirez sat in, holding a file and a sealed, opaque evidence bag, as well as a bottle of water.

She sat down opposite the teenage girl, nudging the water bottle towards her.

Ora stared at it for a moment, then at Leanna, leaning back in her seat and pointedly not taking a drink.

Leanna was quiet for a moment, just looking at her, something sad, even uncomfortable in her eyes.

'I'm sorry, Ora, but your brother's in hospital.' _That_ got a reaction out of the girl. A genuine one, fear and worry crossing her face. 'He was shot, accidentally, during a SWAT raid on your family's home. He's in surgery, they're working on him now-'

Ora stared at her, _glared_ at her, and bit out a handful of words.

'I don't believe you. You're just trying to-'

Leanna, wordlessly, sadly, just pulled a bloodied woman's dress shirt, one that looked like it'd fit her perfectly, out of the evidence bag.

'I put pressure on the wound for ten minutes until EMTs got there.' The Latina girl swallowed, eyes wide, and Leanna leaned closer to her. 'Your brother's blood, Ora. I'm sorry, but…it's your fault.' Ora flinched. 'Your poor parents…' The teenager looked away, not able to meet the agent's eyes. Leanna's voice and expression softened. 'Help us, tell us everything, and we can give you a deal. They won't lose both of their kids for long…'

Ora stared at Leanna for a long, long moment, as if she was hoping that the woman would tell her that this was all some cruel trick, that something would cross her face, something cold and cruel and hard, that'd just hint that this was just an interrogation technique, that this wasn't real, but it didn't happen.

(Leanna was made for this. She was _really, really_ good.)

The teenager glanced one last time at the bloodied shirt on the table, swallowed, looked down at her hands, and began to speak.

'We're…we're targeting the VA event…'

* * *

On the other side of the one-way glass, watching the interrogation, Bozer was tense, fists clenched, anger and pain and betrayal in equal parts in his eyes. Riley, busy transcribing all the intel that Leanna extracted to Mac and Jack, shot her friend a concerned glance.

'Bozer…'

He swallowed.

'I can't watch anymore.'

' _You and I both know that in this game, there are no rules.'_

' _911, what's your emergency?'_

' _Please, we need help!'_

' _Congratulations. You got me to do something I haven't done since that day. Talk about Josh's death.'_

'… _But if this is the game, I don't think I want to play.'_

Bozer turned away and walked out the door, though not before muttering something under his breath that sounded an awful lot like, _not again._

Riley bit her lip, very concerned, as she kept typing up the intel for Mac and Jack.

Bozer hadn't been forged and hardened in fire in the way that Jack and Mac and Matty and Riley herself had been.

And he was so fundamentally _good,_ so free of guile, innocent, a touch naive…

But there'd been something more in his eyes, in his posture, in his voice, Riley was sure. Very sure.

Something deeper, some terrible wound that'd never quite healed.

The hacker swallowed and pushed it aside for now.

She had to.

They had to stop Senator Hicks, a whole group of vets and Mac and Jack from being blown up.

So, making a mental note (in all caps and bold) to prod Bozer about it later, with some chocolate or a tub of ice-cream or some donuts, to listen if he was willing to talk, Riley focused back on her work.

* * *

A couple of minutes later, Leanna stepped out of the interrogation room, and with the door firmly closed behind her, she let her eyes close for a moment, taking a deep breath, then another.

Recovering her equilibrium.

She swallowed and looked down for a moment, sending up a very quick prayer for forgiveness, before looking up again.

She just so happened to make eye contact with Bozer, who was heading back into the observation room from the bathroom down the hall.

Pain, betrayal and anger were still very, very obvious in his eyes.

Leanna swallowed again and looked away, not able to make eye contact with her boyfriend.

That tension had grown, swollen, and felt like it filled the room now.

But they both pushed it aside, and stepped into the observation room together.

They had a job to do.

Everything else had to wait.

For now.

* * *

 **VA CENTRE**

 **DETROIT**

* * *

'Yeah, little late, Ri…'

Senator Hicks was standing on the podium, in the middle of a speech.

And around them, people were screaming and shaking and panicking, as a teenage boy (Holden) wearing an explosive vest, detonator in hand, flanked by a teen girl (Chen) and a boy (Kane), Kane pointing his weapon at the terrified audience, while Chen had her gun trained on Jack, who had his own weapon trained on Holden.

(The teenagers appeared to have been spooked, or had gotten antsy and couldn't wait. Apparently, the plan had been to launch their attack – they'd slipped in with the _huge_ crowd of people a couple of minutes before the Senator's speech, heavily disguised – just after the speech, but they'd interrupted it instead.)

Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw a familiar head of blonde hair slip out a side door in the chaos as the teens established control of the room, Kane firing several warning shots at some of the hostages who'd dared to approach him.

'Any one of you try something like that again and we blow this place!'

'Son, none of us-'

Jack shot Senator Hicks a warning look, as a bullet lodged itself in his right knee and he fell to the ground, just a couple of yards from Jack's feet, and Chen practically spat at him.

' _Shut up_.'

* * *

Mac picked the lock of the centre's medical supply room without even having to really think about it, then stepped inside and started pulling open drawers, no fewer than twenty potential half-formed ideas floating around his brain.

He opened a locked drawer and found a huge number of fentanyl lollipops.

 _Now, the opioid epidemic, including among former members of the armed forces, is a major crisis facing our country today._

 _But right now, I'm really grateful for endemic over-prescription._

Mac seized a box of disposable nitrile gloves and scooped the lollipops out of the drawer, getting straight to work, acutely aware of his deadline.

* * *

'There's no outcome where this ends well for you three, or your cause…'

Kane snorted, Chen scoffed, and Holden's grip on the detonator tightened a little.

He was the one who tilted his chin up, challengingly, at Jack, despite the fact that the former CIA agent had his gun aimed squarely between his eyes.

'We'll be martyrs for the cause. No matter what.'

Internally, Jack cursed.

He had to give them credit; they knew what they were doing.

He could foil them, yes (he was a damn good shot, and he knew he had back-up in the form of Mac and several vets and current service members)…but if he killed Holden, shot him point-blank between the eyes and had to do the same to Chen and Kane (quite likely, that would be the only way to make sure that the bomb didn't go off and kill the Senator, plus all the innocents around them)…he'd be serving their cause.

Their twisted cause, that road to hell paved with good intentions.

Teenage martyrs shot and killed by government agent?

(The optics – cold as it was to consider - on that were terrible.)

Besides, Jack avoided shooting to kill whenever he could.

And he _really, really, really_ didn't want to shoot kids.

* * *

Mac grabbed an oxygen mask and a couple more nitrile gloves, as well as a roll of dental floss, cutting off a long length with his Swiss Army knife.

Holding a section between his teeth, the oxygen mask tucked under his arm, he tied a series of knots in the floss.

* * *

'You'd get your cause a lot further if you got to have a good, long chat with someone with real power.'

Chen snorted.

'They don't listen. They never do.'

'I know some people who will. Promise. I can get you the chance, just put down those guns, and let me disarm that vest…'

(Or, rather, let Mac disarm it, but Jack wasn't mentioning his partner to them. He had to buy Mac enough time to execute whatever genius, non-lethal plan he was currently coming up with.)

The three teenagers glanced at each other for a moment.

(They were still young, still idealistic, in a way, deep down. They really, really wanted to believe him.)

But eventually, Kane scoffed.

'You're preaching non-violence, while you've got a gun on Jake?'

Jack paused for a moment, and thought very, very loudly, _hurry up, brother!_ He didn't shift his weapon from Holden in the slightest, but he _did_ speak, tone conciliatory, acknowledging the truth of Kane's words.

'I'll put mine down if you guys put yours down. Make this fair.'

Senator Hicks, still on the floor and applying pressure to the still-bleeding gunshot wound (through-and-through, fortunately) in his knee, shot Jack a look as if he thought the Phoenix agent was crazy and whispered harshly to him.

'They don't have a dead man's switch, just hurry up and shoot 'em!'

Jack shot him a very, very, very harsh look.

A look that said, _with all due respect, sir – which ain't much – shut up._

Jack, Kane, Chen and Holden all stared at each other for a long, long, long moment.

Then, ever so slightly, slowly, Holden's right hand, the one holding the detonator, began to shift, thumb moving…

* * *

At that moment, Mac, wearing a very strange thing that obscured most of his face and kind-of resembled a gas mask, pulling a whole bunch of inflated gloves behind him like a clown selling really weird five-fingered balloons, burst into the room.

The door slammed shut behind him, and he gave the string tied to the 'balloons' a sharp yank.

They burst with a loud _pop,_ and something filled the air which left a vaguely-sweet aftertaste on the back of Jack's palate…

That was the last thing he remembered, as everything went blurry, then dark…

* * *

Woozy, vaguely aware of falling to her knees, her grip on her weapon loosening as the same thing happened to everyone in the room, except the blonde guy wearing that really weird pseudo-gas-mask, Adriana Chen stared at that blonde guy.

Judging by the fact that he was kneeling by Jake, who was already out, disarming his vest, and that he'd cast a concerned glance at the Senator and that government agent who'd been holding a gun on them, he was some kind of government agent too.

He would have been well within his rights to kill them. And he'd have been able to, without losing a wink of sleep.

But Adriana knew that when she actually blacked out, she'd wake up again.

The last thought she had before that all-engulfing darkness took her was that, _maybe he wouldn't have slept so well. Maybe he wouldn't have slept at all._

* * *

Mac, as he disarmed the explosive vest that Holden had been wearing, addressed Riley through his earpiece.

'We need EMTs here, stat. Tell them to bring naloxone. Lots of naloxone.'

 _I do not want a repeat of the 2002 Moscow theatre hostage crisis._

 _Not at all._

 _Everyone here's getting the antidote, even if I'm sure some of the powers-that-be would rather I kept my sleeping gas formulation a secret._

The explosive neutered, he turned his attention to rolling the Senator, then Jack, into the recovery position, before beginning to work his way through the crowd, rolling people into the recovery position and triaging the best he could, injecting those who seemed particularly weak or frail (like a woman who couldn't have been any younger than 85, whom he really hoped hadn't landed too hard on the ground) with the limited amount of naloxone he'd found in another one of the drawers.

* * *

As EMTs took a selection of (now-conscious) people to hospital for observation, and FBI agents took Chen, Holden and Kane away in cuffs, Mac's phone beeped in his pocket.

He pulled it out, to find that that familiar, shocking scene on Cloud City was on the screen, and he had a text message from his father.

 **Good work, Angus.**

Mac stared at it for a long moment, then swallowed and put his phone back in his pocket.

He would never admit it, but a little part of him was still that little boy who'd idolized his father and treasured any praise from him (who'd reassured his dying mother that it was okay she wouldn't get to see who he'd grow up to be, because she already knew – he was going to be a good man, because his grandfather would teach him how, and he was going to be a scientist, an inventor, just like his dad, and they could even work together to make things to help people), and praise from his father was almost as rare as hens' teeth.

But on the other hand, after all this time, after _everything_ …it hardly felt anywhere near enough. It left a bitter taste in his mouth, almost.

Mac pushed that all aside to process later, and walked over to where Jack and the Senator were just being given the all-clear by paramedics.

The Senator stood, somehow managing to make the motion dignified, despite the shock blanket wrapped around his shoulders and the lack of his suit jacket and tie, the rumpled nature of his dress shirt, and held Mac's eyes for a moment, expression far from being sceptical or challenging.

There was definite respect there, this time.

He nodded at the blonde agent, then held out his hand, and Mac took it and shook it firmly with a nod of his own.

Then, the Senator walked off towards his brand-new security team, and Mac and Jack headed the other way for ex-fil.

Jack grinned and pointed at his partner.

'That was _awesome_ , brother! Those balloon thingies looked real weird, but…awesome!' Jack's grin softened, and he put an arm around Mac's shoulders, pulling him into a side-hug. 'Seriously, you did real good today, son. Real good.' He'd have done it, if he'd really had to. And he'd have gone home and eventually gotten to sleep. But those would've been three kills that Jack carried with him for the rest of his life, in the back of his mind. (Not all of them were, far from it, but these three would have been.) But Mac had made another way, a seemingly impossible way, possible, because that was what he did. Mac hugged the older man back for a moment, before they both let go and Jack pointed at him again, the grin on his face changing into a teasing smirk. 'But you've already done the whole knock-everyone-out trick, man! You running out of ideas? The hamster wheels in your head need oiling?'

Mac rolled his eyes and shook his head with very fond exasperation, as they fell into that light-hearted banter that had almost-certainly kept them sane through so much.

'A, that is _not_ how brains work, Jack. And B, it's a highly-effective tactic…'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Once Mac and Jack were on the plane on their way back to LA, the Senator was in safe hands, and the teenage terrorists arrested, all their evidence sent to the FBI and all the loose ends tied up, Bozer walked down the corridor, towards Leanna.

'We need to talk.'

Leanna just nodded, as that terse, tense something between them, which they'd put aside because they had to, returned with a vengeance.

Bozer opened the door to the nearby interrogation room, and unseen by both of them, in the observation room, Riley turned off all the cameras and microphones, then shut down the observation room and left.

The young couple stood on opposite sides of the table in the room, Bozer leaning against the wall, Leanna with her hands on the back of a chair, silent and tense, the expression on Bozer's face stony and pained and _betrayed._

Eventually, Leanna broke the silence.

'It was the most efficient way of getting what we needed.'

That sounded far more defensive than she'd wanted it to.

'She's sixteen, Leanna! Some things…some things are just _wrong_.'

'There's only one rule in this game, Bozer. There are no rules.'

There was something angry in Leanna's voice too, now, and the two of them stood there, staring at each other, for a long, long moment, before Bozer finally broke the silence.

'You…you _know._ And…and you still did it. Again.' Bozer hesitated for a moment. 'And…you've done it before, haven't you?' Leanna was still for a moment, before she gave one, definite nod, the motion slightly jerky. Bozer nodded, suspicions confirmed, and paused, looking _heartbroken,_ before continuing. 'This…this isn't just about that anymore. It's…it's about our future together, Leanna.'

Bozer knew full well that he might be being a tad hypocritical.

He was a spy. His closest friends, his family in all about blood, were spies.

His BFF was a spy who had certainly played people's emotions, bluffed them, when he'd needed to. Bozer had witnessed it himself, several times.

(Though, Bozer also knew that his BFF ran crazy cost-benefit analyses in his mind, and that it didn't sit terribly well with him. He knew that Mac never did it if there was another way that didn't end in death or serious injury, even if that way was harder and put him at greater risk. He did everything he could to minimise pain and injury to everyone, even the bad guys, and even emotional pain.)

(Bozer, since he lived with Mac, was aware that that look on Omar's face when Mac had told him that they had Mia was something that Mac could not forget, not in the slightest.)

(And not just because of his near-eidetic memory.)

(Mac had found a way – a seemingly impossible way – to save Bozer and Leanna _and_ capture the entirety of a Serbian crime family without spilling a drop of blood, but in Mac's eyes, that wasn't a mission with no harm done. It wasn't one of those missions that he'd slept like a baby after, even if it wasn't one of those that kept him up all night either.)

(Leanna had never seemed to have lost even a wink of sleep.)

But hypocritical or not (he was human, all humans were hypocritical from time to time anyway), he still felt that way. His emotions were genuine, and he and Leanna had to share and talk about these things.

Leanna seemed to know which way his thoughts had turned, because she crossed her arms and replied, her voice a _touch_ softer than Bozer had expected.

'Not everyone's got Mac's skill-set or access to it. That's what makes _better_ paths possible.' Her voice hardened a bit more, grew defensive again. 'The rest of us…we don't get that luxury. We make do with what we have.' She paused, breaths coming quickly, then slowing, before her voice softened again, slightly. 'You're living in a bubble, Bozer.'

Bozer swallowed, staring at her for a long, long moment.

'If…if I am…I don't wanna live outside it.' The _I can't_ went unspoken, but hung there nonetheless. He paused for several beats, the silence stretching thin between them, before continuing, voice sad and sorry and very much heartbroken. 'This…this is gonna keep happening, isn't it?'

Leanna nodded jerkily, her eyes just as sad and pained as his.

'Yeah.'

Bozer swallowed and looked her in the eye.

'So this is it for us?'

Leanna, after a moment, just nodded sadly.

'Yeah.'

There was a long silence, before Bozer's mouth twisted into something that might have been a very weak grin.

'They say that living together's supposed to make or break your relationship…turns out it's working together.'

Leanna gave a particularly strong exhale that might have been a weak laugh, before she walked towards the door, though not before stopping briefly by his side and putting a hand on his shoulder, then, after a moment's hesitation, kissing him on the cheek lightly.

It felt very much like goodbye.

'All the best, Bozer.'

Yeah, it was definitely goodbye.

He swallowed and managed a weak but genuine smile.

'You too, Leanna.'

She gave a little nod and a weak, but genuine, smile in return, then walked out the door.

And, Bozer thought to himself, out of his life.

* * *

 **MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

Two days after Mac had saved the day using lollipops, of all things (Mac, being Mac, had pedantically insisted that it'd only worked because they were _fentanyl_ lollipops, and he had no idea how he could have pulled off something like that using _ordinary_ lollipops – but Jack firmly believed that if anyone could save the day using normal lollipops, it'd be his partner), Jack, holding a six-pack of Bozer's favourite beer, walked up the driveway, side-by-side with Matty.

He was also, periodically, staring at his boss as they walked, muttering under his breath, and Matty just raised an eyebrow at him.

'Have I got something on my face, Jack? Or is there something you want to share with the class?'

Yeah, he was definitely right.

Jack just gave a little grin-smirk and shook his head.

'Nah.'

Matty snorted and rolled her eyes.

(Jack had suspected that Matty's little thing with sending Leanna on a mission with Bozer but having her be Mac's fake wife, while it wasn't the crazy mind games that Bozer had, in his paranoia, believed that she was playing – which, Jack agreed, _was_ definitely not beyond Matty the Hun – _did_ have a little something more behind it. He'd started thinking when Leanna got recruited to the Phoenix that Matty had been testing her…and in more ways than one.)

(Matty, according to Cage, who was Cage, so of course it was right, was Team Mom. What mother didn't want to test their kid's significant other a little, just to make sure that they were good and right for their child?)

(Diane would totally have done it.)

(Without the whole take-down-a-Serbian-war-criminal and cover-identities-and-espionage stuff, but the point still stood.)

Then, the thought crossed his mind, that Matty had been _wrong._

On one hand…Matty was _wrong._ This was a day that he was never going to forget.

On the other hand…he really wished that she hadn't been, in this case.

Who wouldn't be sad that their friend's relationship had ended, and their heart was broken?

Bozer might have fallen hard and fast (unbelievably hard and fast), but Jack believed, they all believed, he had truly, deeply and definitely madly, loved Leanna.

He sighed, expression sobering, as they reached the front door and Jack turned his key in the lock.

* * *

Mac and Riley were in the kitchen, preparing French toast (one of about four things that Riley could cook well, and one of probably hundreds that Mac could, since cooking was, according to him, 'applied edible chemistry'). The blonde raised an eyebrow at the six-pack in Jack's hand, and the older man shrugged.

'It's 5 o'clock somewhere.'

Mac resisted the urge to point out that, since it was 8:07 am, it was not, actually, _exactly_ 5 o' clock anywhere, and instead took the beer and put it in the fridge, just as Bozer walked out of the bathroom, hair wet, towel around his neck. There was a very melancholy look on his face as he exited the bathroom, but his expression brightened when he saw his friends, a grin that was only ever-so-slightly forced appearing on his face.

'Morning, everyone.'

'Morning, Boze.' Mac took the plate of French toast that Riley handed him, added a couple of pieces of bacon, which had been baking in the oven, as well as a generous drizzle of maple syrup. 'Breakfast?'

Bozer's grin widened and grew easier, and he took the plate from Mac and sat down at the dining table, as Mac and Riley plated up breakfast for the rest of them.

* * *

Two-thirds of the way through breakfast, Matty shot Jack a _look_ as he sneakily attempted to steal the last of Mac's bacon (he'd never dare to try and take hers) while the blonde was distracted doing _something_ to the pepper grinder (exactly what it was, no-one except Mac knew…actually, maybe Mac didn't quite know what he was doing either, given the muttering under his breath that he was doing and the fact that there was pepper and bits of metal all over the table), then spoke.

'Leanna is transferring back to the CIA. They're very happy to have her back.'

Mac, Jack and Riley, almost comically, if not for the situation, due to how synchronised it was, all turned to look at Bozer, who just gave a sad little smile.

'She _is_ a really good agent.'

* * *

Two hours after breakfast, after Jack had headed off to, Mac and Riley both knew, spend a quiet Saturday with Diane and Matty had headed off to do whatever she did on weekend (it was probably classified), Riley set up the first film in their MCU movie marathon, _Iron Man,_ before plonking herself back down on the couch next to Bozer.

Meanwhile, Mac grabbed an array of Ben and Jerry's tubs from the freezer (specially purchased the day before – he _was_ capable of some degree of forward planning, thank you very much), then balanced three spoons on top and walked over into the living room. He put down the ice-cream on the coffee table and passed Bozer a tub of his favourite, Phish Food.

As the famous Marvel opening credits rolled, Riley gave a mischievous smirk and tossed Mac a tub of Blondie Ambition, before pointing to her hair, which made Mac give a little groan (it was a Jack-worthy pun, and everyone knew he couldn't stand Jack's puns) and Bozer a little chuckle, which they both counted as a win.

* * *

As Tony Stark dramatically announced to the press that he was Iron Man, Bozer glanced at the blonde on his right (who'd declared that while Blondie Ambition was no Rocky Road, it was far, far better than its punny name) and the hacker on his left (who'd shamelessly polished off a whole pint of Chunky Monkey) and smiled, leaning back against the couch.

* * *

AN: What did you guys think about that? I am really nervous about posting this episode, because of the themes/issues that it deals with, and I really hope I did them justice, and more importantly, was reasonably 'fair' in dealing with them. I tried very hard not to demonise any one side (both in terms of the politics and Bozer/Leanna) and let them both 'speak' (especially Leanna); I know I'm pretty far from being balanced and definitely have a message in there (in my defence, this is a fanfic for a show in which the titular character is a pacifist who hates guns, is clearly uncomfortable with being a 'professional liar' and will give it all away for the sake of only working for someone he trusts). I really hope you guys think I did alright!

Jack's view on guns is my headcanon, just based on what I thought was 'logical' considering his background, occupation and frequent usage of them in the field (and fangirling over certain weapons); he and Mac disagree on this, but they definitely respect each other's opinions. This ending to Bozer/Leanna is what I've had in mind all along – I felt that they never really resolved that point of major tension between them, with the fact that the rule of the game is that there are no rules, and that Leanna can, will and does do whatever she needs to to complete her mission (even if she's not proud of having done it and feels guilty for it afterwards), while Bozer doesn't want to play this game (and in their line of work, can get away with it too, because of the miracles that this team can pull off, frequently because of Mac). I'm really sorry if you're a Bozer/Leanna fan – but at least I hope they got a decent-ish ending?

I know that the opening gambit is jumping the shark, but I think the show did that with the time Mac and Jack were dressed as Sami reindeer herders…or at least the time that Mac copied _Up!_ :P

Anyway – here's the 'press release' for the next episode:

3.05, Butterfly Bandages to Sutures. A suspected Organization break-in at the CIA's Office of Special Projects brings Nikki _and_ Allie to the Phoenix…and an awful lot of awkwardness and discomfort for Mac. Clearly, it's not his day…and that's _before_ the bad guys get involved.


	5. Butterfly Bandages to Sutures

AN: Sorry that this took two weeks, it's been a tough couple of weeks for me. I had exams (ugh…), including one that is officially the most difficult exam I've ever done in my life. In my three and a half years at university, it's the only exam I've failed to finish. (Luckily, it seems that no-one else did either…but there's definitely going to be some worrying until results come out!)

* * *

 **THE LAB**

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

 **(HEY, THEY** _ **DO**_ **HAVE TO KEEP UP THEIR COVER)**

 **(AND EVEN THE SPY GAME HAS SLOW DAYS)**

* * *

'Boze, can you pass me those screws? Uh…no, not those ones, the bronze ones, thanks.'

Bozer, on the other side of Sparky (who was lying prone on the table and fretting about Mac accidentally frying his circuits…again), shook his head as his BFF dived right back into the modification he was doing to the robot's shoulder joints.

On the other side of the lab, Riley and Jill were filming Beth (she preferred that over the formality of Dr Taylor) as she demonstrated the correct usage of butterfly bandages on a chunk of pork. The two computer experts were discussing something that the rest of them didn't really understand as they tried to work out the best way to update Sparky's code so he could actually carry out the actions that Beth was expertly demonstrating.

The 'young 'uns' as Jack had accidentally called them (Mac, Bozer and Riley had totally given it to him and planned to give him even more later for that) were upgrading Sparky, increasing his skill-set to include (for now) reasonably basic diagnostic, triage and first aid abilities.

'You almost done there, bro? 'Cause I'm done over here.'

'Almost, Boze, just got a couple more wires to…'

Mac trailed off, losing himself in whatever he was doing again, and Bozer shook his head fondly again, as Sparky spoke up.

'Is MacGyver about to fry my circuits again?'

Mac shot the AI a _look._

(It was only _once._ It'd only been _some_ of his circuits. Sparky had been mostly fine. He was a _robot_ and couldn't feel pain anyway. Heck, Mac had even apologized. _Twice._ And oiled all of Sparky's joints.)

(Clearly, Sparky was never going to let him forget it.)

(He'd picked up a few things from Jack on their road trip.)

Bozer chuckled.

'He better not.' He pointed at his eyes with two fingers, then at Mac. 'I'm watching you, bro.'

Mac shook his head and rolled his eyes in fond exasperation, and returned to finishing off the modification to Sparky's shoulder…taking extra care to not fry any circuits.

(He also smiled to himself in satisfaction.)

(He'd proposed starting this project to spend even more time with his best friend, in an attempt to comfort him after his break-up.)

(Along with the standard movie marathons, table tennis, ice-cream and mini-golf, of course.)

(He'd brought Riley into it, of course. She was family, and they needed her skill-set. And Jill's skill-set was useful too – she had a different way of looking at things than Riley – and besides, the forensic analyst was good people, good company and a friend. They needed a doctor's expertise too, and Beth was also good people, good company and becoming a friend to them all.)

He straightened up.

'All good, Sparky.'

Mac shifted over a bit so that he could work on the robot's hands next. They needed a serious dexterity upgrade if he was going to be able to match Beth's suturing.

Sparky glanced over at Mac, saw what he was doing and turned back to Bozer, looking…honestly, unimpressed.

(Which was really impressive since he didn't actually have a face that was capable of any movement…)

'I suppose suffering through this will decrease my likelihood of being usurped by that interloper…'

Bozer and Mac exchanged a glance.

'Sparky, we've told you this, like, a million times.'

'Your skill-sets did not overlap. You were never going to be replaced.'

'And Dalton's Nightmare got blown to bits, so it's all moot anyway, man!'

Sparky actually _huffed._

'You have only repeated these reassurances twenty-three times.'

Bozer shot the robot a _look,_ then his best friend one for good measure.

'He gets this from you, bro.'

Mac just gave an apologetic, sheepish little shrug.

… _Honestly, he probably does._

They worked on in relative quiet. Bozer helped Mac with the finicky, minute changes to Sparky's hand articulation system (Bozer's hands were just as steady as his BFF's, due to the very fine detail work he did all the time on his prostheses). Riley and Jill exchanged a high-five as they finished writing a particularly tricky sequence of code, while Beth finished demonstrating butterfly bandaging and moved on to suturing a long gash in another lump of pork.

Mac pursed his lips as he and Bozer reached a point in the (rather flexible) blueprints in his head, then turned a little and called out to the other side of the room.

'Beth, can you help us out for a moment? We need another pair of steady hands.' Riley paused the recording, and Beth put down her needle and thread carefully, pulled off her gloves and sterilized her hands with the alcohol-based hand wash on the bench next to her. She walked over to them, and Mac shot her a quick smile. 'Can you just hold these together for a bit, while I attach this…Boze, move the wire in your right hand to the left about an eighth of an inch…'

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Mac and Beth walked towards the break room, having been 'volunteered' to do the coffee run by the others.

(Riley had nudged Jill reasonably discreetly under the table, and the two women had said that they were working on a very important and very tricky part of the code and absolutely could not stop for a moment or they'd lose their focus, while Bozer had muttered something about a promise to Sparky regarding an 'aesthetic improvement' which the AI had been about to protest, but Bozer had turned him off before he could.)

(Sure, Mac _had_ been the one to suggest asking Beth to help out, but they were reading _far_ too much into that.)

(They needed the help of a doctor. Beth was the logical choice. She had a great interest in science, a knowledge of engineering _far_ better than a layperson's – her dad was an engineer, and she'd grown up around them, even if she claimed that she wasn't much of one herself, just a fan of good engineering - and was nice and friendly and, being the youngest of the Phoenix's medical staff, about the same age as Mac, Bozer, Riley and Jill.)

(And she'd mentioned, the last time Mac was stuck in the infirmary, that she'd like to meet Sparky when she'd gotten him talking about the AI – she'd been distracting him from the really awful sting of disinfectant wipes on a not-terribly-deep-but-debris-filled graze on his arm, and Sparky seemed to be the first thing that'd come to her mind – and he probably owed her for being such a terrible patient. And for that incident last week.)

(He really wanted to stay on her good side.)

'If we can do this, Sparky's going to be able to save so many lives, help so many people when we can't.'

Mac nodded in agreement.

'Assist in hospitals, care for the elderly and the disabled in their own homes, assist with search-and-rescue and triage after earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes, tsunamis…'

Puerto Rico could definitely have done with an army of Sparkies (or, rather, what he'd be – Mac was _very_ determined to make their plans a reality) after Maria.

(And probably still could, and would for a long time. He'd talk to Matty about it when they succeeded; Mac reckoned that he might be able to convince Jack that Carlos could be trusted to keep the AIs in line – he'd been a Green Beret, after all.)

Mac looked down and over at her as he trailed off, and found that there was a look in her eyes that he instantly recognized.

It was the look he'd seen in the eyes of medical staff and aid workers all through Afghanistan and Iraq, and it was a look that he was _never, ever_ going to forget.

It was a look that he thought he could, fundamentally, understand.

It wasn't all too dissimilar from the look he'd seen in the eyes of quite a few of his fellow soldiers, had seen in Jack's eyes and Pena's eyes and Charlie's and in the mirror.

'After airstrikes, when you're anticipating the double-tap, knowing that there are people out there who need your help, but not being able to go help them… _he could.'_ She fell silent, lost in a memory, the haunting sort of memory that one could _never, ever_ forget. Even if, sometimes, one really, really wanted to. Mac shot her a sympathetic look (or, perhaps more accurately, an empathetic look), which earned him a small, grateful smile in response, before Beth shook her head, apologetically, a little awkwardly, even, perhaps, slightly uncomfortably. 'Sorry.'

He was about to tell her that she had absolutely nothing to apologize for (she really didn't, and he also really couldn't judge anyone for a bit of social awkwardness), when his phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out.

 **War room. Stat, Blondie.**

'Duty calls?' There was a wry little smile on her face. Mac nodded, and Beth gestured to the break room door with her head. 'I can handle the coffee run.'

Mac was already walking off (backwards), when his phone buzzed again.

 **Tell Doc not to bother with coffee for Riley and Bozer.**

Mac stared incredulously at the nearest security camera, and called out to Beth.

'Uh, Matty says that you don't need to get Riley or Bozer one…'

Beth looked surprised (she wasn't quite used to Matty yet…though Mac wondered if Matty would _ever_ stop surprising them) and a _tiny_ bit disturbed and scared, but nodded.

'Tell her thanks?'

He nodded, and she opened the break room door and stepped inside.

Mac turned around, just as his phone buzzed in his hand yet again.

 **And you are LATE, lover boy.**

Mac threw his hands up incredulously (Matty too, really?), but started jogging towards the war room anyway.

* * *

Mac walked into the war room and stopped in his tracks just inside the door.

It turned out that there was more than one meaning behind Matty's swapping out of one of her usual nicknames for him.

Jack almost walked straight into him, which almost caused Riley and Bozer to walk into him.

'Seriously, man, I know you get lost in that head of yours sometimes, but you gotta stay aware of your…'

Jack trailed off as he noticed the war room's two occupants and shot his partner a look of sympathy, which he didn't notice, because he was too busy staring at the two women sitting on the couch.

'Hi, Mac.'

Allie smiled, a hint of a smirk in her expression.

Nikki, at the same moment, waggled her fingers at her ex-boyfriend, a definite smirk in her smile.

'Surprise.'

Mac seemed to finally find his voice, and waved rather awkwardly.

'Uh…hello, Nikki. Hello, Allie.'

The three of them all stared at each other for a long moment that had to come straight out of one of Bozer's movie scripts, as the realization that they both knew Mac _very well_ dawned on Nikki and Allie…and a most interesting look passed between them, before they both raised an eyebrow at Mac in a way that was comically and also terrifyingly similar, before shooting each other a _look_ again.

Jack was positive that as brave a man as Mac was, he blanched. Visibly. He reached out and clapped a hand on the younger man's shoulder.

'It was nice knowing you, brother.'

Bozer, meanwhile, was muttering under his breath about how he couldn't have written it better for the drama and the shock value, until there was a _thwack_ followed by a high-pitched yelp from him, as Riley socked him in the arm, none too gently.

At that moment, Matty, trailed by Andi, taking notes on her tablet, strode into the room.

'…Get Bill from the CIA on the line, leave him there for twenty minutes, it'll soften him up.' She made her way to the large screen on the wall and tapped it, looking at the war room's other occupants and blatantly ignoring the awkward, uncomfortable and slightly tense mood in the air. 'Well, since no introductions are required today, let's get started.' A picture of Allie's lab appeared on-screen. 'Two days ago, there was a break-in at the CIA's Office of Special Projects. Several highly classified prototypes were stolen, and the prime suspect is The Organization. Given our previous experience with The Organization, your technological proficiency…' Matty indicated Mac, Riley and Bozer, but pointedly not Jack. '…and successful teamwork in the past, the CIA has actually suggested that you four work with Agent Carpenter and Miss Winthrop to recover the stolen devices and arrest those responsible…'

* * *

The walk from the war room to the lab was only a total of 120 yards, including three flights of stairs.

It had never felt so long in Mac's life.

Including when he had to get his best friend, who'd been stabbed and had been a genuine risk of bleeding out, from said lab to the war room.

'…They managed to breach the security system…'

Nikki said that quite pointedly, deliberately not looking at Allie, who just shot the blonde woman a dirty look and crossed her arms.

'Given that they've been on the CIA's radar for over two years, I'm very surprised we weren't warned…'

Bozer, walking in front of Nikki and Allie with Riley, mouthed _burn!_ Riley shot him a _look,_ then rolled her eyes as Mac's ex-girlfriends (she supposed that Allie counted, even if their relationship had apparently lasted about three days, given how Mac had felt about her) continued to trade barely-veiled barbs.

Meanwhile, an uncomfortable Mac himself brought up the rear of the group with Jack, the older man with a fistful of the back of Mac's leather jacket in hand (unnecessarily, Mac was insisting, by shooting his partner a _look,_ while Jack shot him a _look_ back that clearly showed that he thought it was very necessary – Mac was extremely, extremely good at getting himself out of sticky situations, he wasn't taking any chances, not when his partner seemed to be contemplating setting off the Phoenix's security system with a cleverly-placed gum wrapper – again – to force an evacuation).

He reached into his pocket to pull out the stick of gum that he had stashed in there. Jack saw what he was doing and just held out a hand, very insistently.

'You owe me, man.'

Jack looked as stubborn as he ever did. And Mac did feel that he kind-of owed his partner (last week, they'd had to go for a dip in some sewage to prevent the Panamanian ambassador from being blown up, which had ruined Jack's new boots, which he'd just gotten broken in right – he and Jack also really owed poor Beth; Mac hoped that she at least got hazard pay for having to deal with two bickering field agents who positively reeked of sewage)…so he handed over the stick of gum with just an eye-roll.

Jack promptly put the whole thing in his mouth, wrapper included, chewed and swallowed.

Apparently, he really wasn't taking any chances.

* * *

 _Remember when I dramatically quit my job a couple months' back and then almost-as-dramatically changed my mind?_

 _You know, for the first time in eight weeks, I'm seriously wishing I hadn't done the latter._

 _Well, not seriously…but…_

 _I really shouldn't have handed over that stick of gum._

* * *

The lab was buzzing with activity.

Jill and Bozer were running samples through the mass spec. (Mac's BFF was carefully preparing the samples, autopipette in his right hand, while Jill was seated in front of the computer, analysing the results.) Riley was doing computer forensics, while Jack and Mac sifted through the pile of physical evidence that Nikki and Allie had brought with them.

Nikki was on her laptop, next to Riley, also doing computer forensics, as Allie went through all the bags of evidence with Mac and Jack.

At that moment, Allie was detailing some of the modifications that'd been made to B.R.U.N.O.

'…we've changed to a titanium alloy, and increased the efficiency of the energy conversions by optimizing the surface area using an algorithm I developed, plus we've also optimized the distribution of occupied interstitial sites.'

Mac, who was examining a metal thingamajig that nobody except he and Allie seemed to recognize with the magnifying glass from his Swiss Army knife, looked far less uncomfortable.

(Science was Mac's wheelhouse, his comfort zone. Jack was convinced that Mac could _not_ be uncomfortable while talking about science. It was just impossible.)

'Using directed synthesis?'

Allie nodded, and was about to, presumably, start discussing this directed synthesis with Mac, when Nikki reached out and grabbed a plastic evidence bag containing a set of handcuffs and tossed them at her ex-boyfriend with a smirk.

'Put them aside for later? For old times' sake?'

Mac stared at the handcuffs, then at his ex, for a moment, before putting them in Jack's pile of evidence as if they were made of TATP.

(If not for the fact that his partner was really, really, really uncomfortable, Jack would have laughed out loud for ages at the expression on his face.)

(Jack was positive that Mac's ears were burning under his hair, which was something that Jack was pretty sure hadn't happened in response to Nikki being… _Nikki_ …since the first couple months of their romantic relationship.)

(After that, Mac had gotten comfortable with it, _very_ comfortable with it, and Jack had spent a _lot_ of time wishing that there was such thing as brain bleach and nagging Mac to invent it.)

(To be fair to Nikki, Jack _did_ actually get why she'd had to go with extremely aggressive, can't-be-misinterpreted flirting. Without it, Jack doubted that Mac would've gotten it through his thick skull that this very beautiful, very intelligent, very confident woman was actually interested in him.)

(Meanwhile, Allie shot Nikki a _look._ Nikki just smirked back, and Riley rolled her eyes again.)

Mac fidgeted uncomfortably for a moment, a paperclip practically appearing in his hands, before he caught the look that passed between Nikki and Allie, seemed to gulp, and spoke, his voice unnaturally high and just-plain-unnatural sounding.

'Uh…oh, I just, um, remembered. I forgot to, uh, reassemble the panini maker in the break room…I better go do that, or there'll be another HR complaint, and that'd be…bad. Really bad. Matty will be furious. And she's terrifying.'

The bravest man Jack had ever met, who had decided to run _towards_ a bomb to help out his new partner, rather than do the sensible thing and run _away_ , turned tail and practically ran out of the lab.

Jack and Bozer's eyes met across the room, and they had a silent conversation, coming to a silent agreement. Jack gave a little nod and stepped out of the room.

* * *

He found Mac in the men's bathroom.

(Presumably, he thought that was the one place he could escape the not-ghosts of girlfriends past.)

(Jack wasn't so sure about that; he had some memories he'd really, really rather forget from a mission to Sardinia three years back.)

His partner had his hands braced on one of the sinks, head down, staring at the drain.

Jack sighed internally.

Being a (pseudo)-dad was hard. Really hard.

Then, he cajoled a teasing little smirk onto his face, and jogged Mac gently with his elbow.

'I get it, you're not used to having ladies competing over you, but _panini maker,_ seriously, brother?'

(To be fair, Mac _had_ actually forgotten to reassemble the panini maker two weeks ago. Cal from Cartography was probably never going to forgive him.)

Mac emitted a snort and shook his head. Jack counted that as a win, and his expression turned serious, concerned.

'You gonna be okay, son?'

Mac looked up, meeting the gaze of his partner's reflection, discerning what Jack was really asking.

He was silent for a long moment, before nodding.

'I'm not going to fall for either of them again, Jack.'

'You sure?' Jack held up his hands. 'Sorry, gotta ask.'

Mac nodded resolutely.

'Very, very sure.' He stared at their reflections in the mirror for a beat. 'I'll always care, but…' He glanced over at Jack. 'I…I've already gotten closure.' Jack shot him a _look._ Mac looked the tiniest bit sheepish, though he raised his hands off the sink in a _come on_ gesture. 'It's called a private life for a reason!'

(There were some things he didn't tell Jack, of course.)

(Mac estimated that 90% of those things were things that his partner absolutely did not want to know.)

* * *

 **ONE AND A HALF YEARS AGO**

 **A DINER**

 **(NOT** _ **THAT**_ **DINER)**

 **(BUT THIS ONE** _ **DOES**_ **DO A REALLY GOOD PEACH COBBLER)**

 **LA**

* * *

Nikki smiled as she walked into the diner and recognized a very familiar head of blonde hair. Mac had two cups of coffee in front of him and was doing something involving two emptied sugar packets and a paperclip. She strode over to his booth, her smile shifting into something a bit more of a smirk.

'Is this seat taken?'

Mac put down whatever he was making a little more suddenly than she'd have expected as she started to sit down.

She'd startled him.

Nikki's heart sank, and she leaned back into the booth instead of forward to kiss him in greeting.

Mac, looking awkward and not quite able to make eye contact with her, seemingly very much wanting to pick up his two-sugar-packets-and-paperclip and continue fiddling with them, but refraining, nudged her cup of coffee towards her, and if only to try and break the tension a little, Nikki took a sip.

(Two low-calorie sweeteners – the empty packets were on the saucer - and a caramel-flavoured creamer. Exactly how she liked her coffee, because of course Mac would never, ever forget her coffee order.)

She put down the cup. Mac had lost his battle to stop playing with the mutilated sugar packets and unwound paperclip, but he did manage to look up and meet her eyes.

'I…I meant it. That night at the hotel. After at the Phoenix.' He swallowed, gaze boring into hers for a moment. 'I really, really did…but…' His hands stilled and he looked heartbreakingly apologetic (and just plain heartbroken, which did the little guilty spot in her brain absolutely no favours whatsoever). 'I can't do this. I can't.' His voice wavered a little with emotion, but at the same time, he also sounded resolute. Certain. 'I'm sorry, Nikki.'

Nikki let her eyes close for a moment, swallowing, as her heart broke.

'It's…it's okay, Mac. It's my fault. I…I made my bed, I have to lie in it.' She pasted a little smirk on her face, falling back into bravado and sass and sex appeal, as easily and as comfortably as her favourite little black dress and matching heels (into that safe, confident, comfortable spot, where she was sure and powerful). 'At least we got a last hurrah.'

Mac managed a little smile of his own, which didn't reach his eyes.

'Yeah.' Oh, he regretted it, she realized. He hadn't the morning after, not even with Jack's ragging on him, but he did _now_ , now that he'd worked out which way was up and which way was down again and everything wasn't quite so _raw._ That knife in her heart (which she knew she'd put there, not him) twisted a little, and he got up, dropping some cash on the table. 'Uh…good luck with your, uh, work and I…I hope you're happy, Nikki.' It _could_ have been a dig, those words. They really, really weren't though. He meant it, he really did, because _of course,_ he did. 'Uh…see you around?'

'See you, Mac.'

After one last awkward beat, during which Mac seemed to try to work out if he should say anything else or do anything else, he left her there, sitting in the diner, staring at their coffee cups.

Nikki prided herself on being able to control her emotions, mask them…but she apparently looked melancholy enough that the maternal-looking waitress walked up to her.

'You look like you could do with a nice big serve of cobbler, dearie. Want me to write one up for you? Maybe with an extra scoop of ice-cream on the side?'

Nikki, after a moment, nodded, and reached out for the cash that Mac had left, thinking to use it to pay for cobbler and coffee and a tip, adding her own as needed.

It wasn't needed.

He'd left enough for two coffees and a serve of peach cobbler with extra ice-cream plus a generous tip, because, she thought with a pang, he _was_ Angus MacGyver.

* * *

 **SIX MONTHS AGO**

 **THE LAST KORMAN CHALLENGE**

 **(THE LAST ONE EVER)**

 **(IT'S BAD OPTICS TO NAME A CLASSIFIED GOVERNMENT COMPETITION AFTER A GUY WHO TRIED TO ATTACK THE PENTAGON)**

 **(THEY'LL COME UP WITH A NEW NAME)**

 **(NO, BOZER, THEY ARE NOT NAMING IT AFTER MAC)**

 **VIRGINIA**

* * *

As they walked back towards the CIA and Phoenix's tents after being checked over by medics and a lengthy debrief, Allie glanced over at Mac, and tucking a strand of hair back behind her ear, with a bit more confidence than she felt, spoke.

'Do…do you want to grab coffee? Or maybe we could do dinner?'

Mac stopped in his tracks, looking rather like he kind of wished that the Phoenix's entry ( _why_ it was called Dalton's Nightmare, Allie had no clue) hadn't been blown up and was instead going haywire, so he could be busy dealing with that instead.

'Umm…uh…I'm really, uh, flattered, Allie…but, uh, thanks but no thanks?' He looked very uncomfortable, and also genuinely apologetic, worried for her feelings. 'I'm sorry, since…you know, earlier, you said you…' Mac trailed off, seemingly kicking himself internally for being awkward. 'I care, but…I don't…not anymore.'

Allie nodded, disappointed and sad and a little uncomfortable and very much kicking herself internally too.

(If she had just been able to resist that temptation to just take one peek at those schematics…)

'It's okay, I get it.' She snorted wryly, a touch bitterly. 'Mom always said that my competitive streak would get me into trouble one day.'

Mac rubbed the back of his neck, still rather awkwardly.

'It _is_ a big streak.'

'Oh, be glad we never went up against each other at a science fair…'

* * *

 **MEN'S BATHROOM**

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQ** **UARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Jack reached out and put a hand on his partner's shoulder, a wry little smile on his face.

'The whole faked-her-death-then-faked-being-evil-then-giving-you-whiplash-with-the-whole-is-she-good-or-evil-thing _would_ do a real number on your feelings, once you got your bearings again. Same with the whole spent-years-thinking-she-pretended-to-like-you-to-cheat thing.'

Mac gave a rather sardonic snort.

'Oh, yeah.'

He'd developed feelings for Allie remarkably quickly (which, he supposed, could be attributed to that special something about the Korman Challenge, those few days spent around people who were just like you, who _understood,_ but knowing it'd come to an end all too fast, and something about her, and the fact that that he'd been twenty-one at the time), but he also knew that they were gone now. Had realized that (though he hadn't known it at the time, not having the spare brainpower to process it then) in the middle of that frantic chase after B.R.U.N.O.

And there'd always been something about Nikki, something that gave her the power to, as Jack put it, turn his brain to mush with a deliberate touch or a swing of her hips or a little smirk.

But, for some reason, that _something_ was gone now.

She couldn't do it anymore.

(Which made him feel very relieved. Finally, finally, he'd gotten her out from under his skin.)

(He didn't hate Nikki. Far from it. He doubted he _could._ He hadn't even really managed to when he thought she was evil and had tried to kill him and his family.)

(He definitely still cared.)

(But he also couldn't go back to what had been, to what they'd been, before.)

(And so, he was so, so glad that he'd gotten her out of his system.)

(Because, otherwise, he knew, he'd never be able to truly move on.)

(And that wasn't fair. Not to any woman he might try to date in future – or had, in the intervening year and a half – nor to himself.)

 _Yes, that is pretty much exactly what I said to Jack regarding Sarah a few months' back._

 _And I'm self-aware enough to know that Jack and I, while we give each other pretty decent advice, are terrible at taking our own advice._

 _Really, really terrible._

 _Especially when it comes to women._

 _But this is one instance, if I can say so myself, in which I think I've bucked the trend._

* * *

 **LAB**

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

A couple of minutes after Mac's (feeble) excuse and (temporary) running-away, after Bozer and Jill walked into another room off the lab to use some of the instruments kept there, Riley crossed her arms and turned to Nikki and Allie, both of whom were silently working on their own laptops.

(Allie was attempting to hack into the computer systems on some of her devices. Nikki was doing a more thorough sweep of the CIA's networks. Riley was trawling the dark web for signs of Organization activity.)

She pinned both of them with a _look._

'Both of you are successful, capable, intelligent women. So start acting it and stop acting like middle schoolers squabbling over a boy!'

(It was driving her _crazy._ And it was frustrating and honestly made her want to be sick.)

Allie looked chastised, almost ashamed.

Nikki didn't, but Riley wasn't all too convinced that _ashamed_ was an adjective that could ever be used to describe her anyway. She did, however, draw in a long breath and nod, meeting Riley's eyes, acknowledging that she was right.

Then, the two of them glanced at once another, Allie offering a slightly awkward, almost sheepish smile, Nikki's smoother, though Riley felt it was still genuine. They made eye contact for a moment, before nodding, and returning to their work.

The air felt clearer.

Riley gave a sigh of relief internally.

(Never mind Mac, she was going to explode or something if she had to keep putting up with it.)

(Though, she was pretty sure Mac would have an aneurysm first.)

(If she wasn't living this situation, she was pretty sure she'd find it hilarious.)

(She just _knew_ Bozer would turn this into a movie script.)

(Half of them were based on Mac's life.)

(She kept telling him that it'd be better suited to a TV show.)

* * *

'Based on these purchasing records…'

'…the trace evidence…'

'…CIA surveillance…'

'…and the metadata on these posts, CX-242…' All of the CIA's Office of Special Projects' projects had alpha-numeric code names in that format. B.R.U.N.O was special, since it'd been a Korman Challenge project, and all Korman Challenge entries had more crowd-pleasing names. '…is or was at this suspected Organization safehouse.'

Riley pointed to the address on the screen, and the photo of the nondescript house in suburbia in Torrance.

Jack rubbed his hands together.

'Well, we better go take a look-see, eh?'

He glanced at his partner as he said that. Mac, leaning against the lab bench and fiddling with a paperclip, nodded, and after a moment's hesitation (as if he was wondering if he was stirring the hornets' nest, but had also realized that he had to do it), looked over at Nikki.

'Nikki, you should come with us.' He looked over at Allie, looking more than a touch awkward and uncomfortable. 'Allie, Riley, Bozer, Jill, you guys keep digging here.'

They all nodded seriously, as professional as they all ever were, even Nikki and Allie.

Mac, Jack, Riley and Bozer all noted, let out an almost-indiscernible sigh of relief. Jack smiled at Riley, giving her a two-fingered salute as he, Mac and Nikki filed out of the lab, while Bozer shot the hacker an overly-enthusiastic double-thumbs up.

Riley shook her head with a smile at their antics and turned back to her work.

Then, an idea hit her.

'Allie, can you send me a copy of your satellite uplink code for HY-232?'

* * *

 **SUSPECTED ORGANIZATION SAFEHOUSE**

 **(WELL…NOT SO SUSPECTED ANYMORE, GIVEN WHAT THEY'VE FOUND)**

 **LA**

* * *

'Clear!'

'Clear!'

'Clear. They're gone, and they're not coming back.'

Nikki and Jack tucked their guns back into their holsters as they and Mac finished clearing the house. There was absolutely nobody there.

The blonde woman strode back into the kitchen, where there were thoroughly destroyed computers (or more accurately, computer remains) scattered about the benchtops.

'And they cleaned up after themselves before they left.'

' _Cleaned up_ after themselves.'

Mac pointed at Nikki, his _I-have-an-idea_ face appearing, and then started muttering to himself and jogged out the front door. Jack and Nikki exchanged a glance, very reminiscent of one they'd shared frequently in the past.

(Exasperation. Fond exasperation, but _lots_ of exasperation.)

Mac reappeared about twenty seconds later, a trash bag over his shoulder.

'Brother, you got it all mixed up, you're supposed to take the trash _out_ , not bring it _in_ …'

Mac rolled his eyes and shot his partner a _look,_ and Nikki couldn't help but let a little smile come to her face, even as something tugged painfully on her heartstrings.

(Mac and Jack hadn't changed. She really didn't think they ever would.)

(She hoped they didn't.)

He tipped the bag of trash all over the kitchen floor, and crouched down and pulled out his Swiss Army knife, beginning to sift through it.

He made a noise of triumph when he tipped out a Shake Shack bag to find a grease-stained burger box and three fries.

* * *

Ten minutes later, as Mac, in the kitchen, kept doing… _something_ (he'd just stuck his head in the oven and was muttering about surface area, ambient air temperature and the estimated heat transfer coefficient of the average Shackburger), Jack strode into the living room, where Nikki was attempting to get something, _anything_ , off the thoroughly destroyed hard drives.

(She hadn't had any success yet, and probably wouldn't, but she had to try.)

He crossed his arms, leaning against the wall, until Nikki looked up at him, an eyebrow raised.

'Are you going to say something, or do you just like watching?'

Jack stared at her for a long moment, as if he was weighing her up, judging her. Nikki fought and beat the urge to shift uncomfortably in her seat.

'You broke his heart, not once, not twice, but three times. Then you came waltzing back and picked up right where you left off.' Nikki bit back the urge to retort back that Mac had been happy to pick up where they'd left off too…because that wasn't quite true. She'd had her bearings that night at the hotel, had never really lost them during her time in the cold. He…he'd been a little lost. More than a little lost, honestly. 'He's got you out of his system for good this time…you better not be trying to get back in.'

'Not pulling your punches, are you, Jack?'

He ignored her attempt at levity, even if it came out with more bitterness in there than she'd intended, and replied just as seriously as when he'd first spoken.

'Not when it comes to my boy.'

Nikki couldn't help but glance at Mac as he, oblivious and caught up in the science of Shake Shack and garbage analysis, continued rooting through the trash, and made a noise of triumph as he found a decaying apple core.

She had her regrets.

 _Of course_ she had her regrets.

What she'd done to Mac (and what she'd done to Jack – once upon a time, they'd been _family_ ) was one of them.

But at the same time…she _also_ couldn't regret doing her job. She'd been approached because the CIA had known that she could do what she'd done (Mac never could have, for sure, not the way she had – maybe he could have faked his death, if he felt it was really, really necessary, but not for three months, and definitely not then let his family think he'd betrayed them, not if he could see their pain, their heartbreak).

She did, sometimes, wonder what would've been if she'd never done it, or if there'd never been the need. In some universe with no Organization, no Chrysalis…but it was pointless to think of those things.

Nikki considered herself reasonably pragmatic by nature; take what you could get, what pleasure and happiness you could, when you could.

She looked back up and over at Jack.

'I know I really, really hurt him. And I was wrong to come back as if nothing had happened between us at all.' She paused, and when she continued, her voice was softer, confessional, even. 'I…I hoped it could be like that.' She shrugged, something bitter in the gesture. 'Maybe I deluded myself into thinking it could be.'

Jack studied her for a long, long moment, and she seemed to pass muster, because he nodded.

'Guess…guess Mac made that delusion pretty darn easy, too.'

Nikki couldn't do anything but nod, and they stared at each other for a long moment, before they both nodded, reaching a silent understanding.

With one more nod, Jack headed back into the kitchen, calling out to Mac.

'You done playing with trash, man? Hey, you better remember to wash your hands…'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

As Jill helped Riley out with something computer-y (computers were really not Bozer's thing), Bozer and Allie sat opposite one another on the other side of the lab, Bozer scanning traffic cameras in the vicinity of the Organization safehouse, Allie still trying to get access to the computer that ran one of the stolen devices through the backdoor that Riley had suggested.

When he finished one feed, as another feed loaded, Bozer looked up and over at Allie, who, after a few seconds, looked up at him, an eyebrow raised.

Bozer spoke.

'You know, I had no idea about you or you and Mac's…thing until this year's Challenge. He never mentioned you, 'cause you broke his heart, and made him feel like an idiot.' He paused, as Allie just gave an uncomfortable, regretful little nod. 'And he was young and inexperienced and that really, really hurt.'

Allie swallowed.

(Mac had been, as Bozer pointed out, very young then, and not very experienced with the fairer sex at all, even if he was a very quick learner.)

(But she had been too. Not to the same degree, but still. Allie was four years his senior, true, but she'd also been two years younger than her classmates for most of her education and was a somewhat-socially-awkward, over-competitive engineering nerd.)

(Still, in the end, she'd been the one to do him wrong, all justifications and explanations aside.)

(She'd been phenomenally _stupid_ when she'd let her competitiveness get the better of her. Her mother always had said that it'd get her in trouble one day. It turned out to be more than one day.)

She looked up at Bozer.

'I know. And I'm sorry. Really, really sorry.'

Bozer smiled, small and genuine and understanding, even.

(He had no guile, just like Mac.)

Then, it disappeared, and he shot her a pointed _look,_ doing his best to look threatening.

'You better not do it again, or…I know kung-fu. Sort of. Kinda.'

Allie suppressed her impulse to raise a sceptical eyebrow at that, and to snort, and just nodded slowly, before growing serious.

'I'm…I'm not going to.' She paused, not wanting to mention what had transpired between her and Mac after the Challenge (he might have shared it with Bozer, he might not have – on one hand, Bozer was his best friend, on the other hand, Mac really liked his privacy and seemed to really not like sharing relationship-related stuff, and she didn't want to talk about it either), but wanting to communicate to him that, despite the…interactions…between her and Nikki earlier, he had nothing to worry about regarding a repeat of her and Mac's…thing. 'Look, Mac's really likeable, and he's pretty special…but we live on opposite sides of the country, he has a _really_ bad habit of stealing from my toolbox and I work with, literally, twelve attractive, brilliant men within five years of my age.' That made Bozer smile rather widely, relaxing, and Allie smiled too, and pointed at Jill and Riley, who were blatantly not-listening-but-definitely-listening to the conversation. 'Seriously, that's the only thing I don't hate about the gender imbalance in STEM.'

Jill laughed and nodded in agreement, while Riley gave a snort and shook her head with a smile. The blonde woman spoke.

'We have a _lot_ of eye candy at the Phoenix, if you get a moment to look.' Bozer and Riley stared at her in shock for a moment. They remembered when she was shy and would only call Riley 'Miss Davis'. Jill gave a slightly-sheepish half-shrug, her cheeks pinking a bit. 'What? We techs have slow days, and it's true! We work with an improbably high number of highly attractive people! Have you _seen_ Agent Lucas in a tux?'

* * *

'…Cross-referencing and triangulating the signals from Allie's prototypes…' She'd finally managed to get through that backdoor, and she and Riley had used that to trigger the other devices to emit a just-detectable, rarely-utilized-frequency signal. '…and Mac's Shake Shack science...' On Jill's laptop screen with Jack and Nikki, Mac gave a slightly-sheepish, slightly-smug smirk. Riley's fingernails clacked rapidly on her keyboard as she ran one of her custom algorithms. 'Got an address, sending it to you now.'

It appeared that The Organization had, after splitting up the devices to make them harder to track, brought them all back together again, after they were sure the trail had gone cold.

Mac pulled out his phone and took a look at the address, then thought for a moment, before nodding.

'We can be there in ten.'

Allie turned to Bozer and Jill, sceptical.

'In LA traffic?'

Bozer and Jill just exchanged a glance, shrugging, Bozer speaking.

'It's one of my bro's superpowers.'

Mac, still on the screen via Nikki's phone, though only his back was visible, as the three of them were heading out towards the car already, protested.

'It's not a superpower, Boze, it's just math!'

Jack clapped a hand on his partner's shoulder.

'You say po-tay-to, I say po-tah-to, man.'

Riley shook her head with very exasperated fondness, and steered the conversation back towards business.

'I'm sending a Phoenix tac team, they'll be there in thirty…'

* * *

 **NONDESCRIPT WAREHOUSE**

 **(** _ **TOO**_ **NONDESCRIPT…)**

 **LA**

* * *

Mac, Jack and Nikki, at a safe distance and concealed behind two stacked pallets of bathroom tile, scouted out The Organization's warehouse.

'No camera blindspots at any of the entrances or exits…'

'Alarms and fancy locks on all the first _and_ second floor windows…' Jack gave a little smirk and jogged Mac with his elbow. 'Guess you won't be repeating that overcoming the force of gravity trick.'

Mac gave a little head-shake, a wry and somewhat exasperated smile on his face, as Nikki pursed her lips in thought.

'I could hack into their CCTV, loop the cameras, but that won't buy us enough time.' They'd counted at least fifteen of The Organization's armed foot soldiers. She gave a little smirk. 'We're good, but we're not _that_ good.'

Even with a Phoenix tac team, who'd be there in fifteen minutes, they were outnumbered and out-gunned.

'So, how're we gonna get in?'

Jack mostly addressed that to Mac, who had his thinking face on. After a moment, it disappeared and was replaced by his _I-have-an-idea_ face.

'I'm going to walk in the front door.'

With that, he hurried back over towards the car they'd taken from the Phoenix motor pool, opened the hood, pulled out his Swiss Army knife, made a few cuts and tore something out.

Meanwhile, Jack and Nikki exchanged another one of those very exasperated, annoyed and long-suffering looks, before Jack realized exactly what Mac had just done to the car, and threw his hands up.

'Seriously, man? _You know_ the motor pool guys are still pissed about last week!'

(That car had been written off, because it absolutely reeked of sewage – the smell had gotten well and truly into the upholstery - and was missing about a quarter of an engine, plus its GPS and radio.)

(Somehow, Mac had managed to rig the car to work well enough to return them to the Phoenix, despite missing a quarter of an engine, but it wasn't as if his quick-and-dirty pseudo-repair job would hold long-term.)

(He _had_ saved the Panamanian ambassador from being blown up, but Jack got the feeling that the motor pool guys probably wouldn't forgive Mac for ages. Or possibly never, if he kept pulling stunts like what he'd just done.)

(He'd moved on to ripping the radio out of the car's interior. Again.)

Nikki shot Jack a sympathetic look, a wry smirk on her face nonetheless.

'I do _not_ miss those expense reports.'

Mac ignored them, now well and truly lost in his crazy, on-the-fly inventing and talking to Allie on his phone.

'Allie, check my math. If I've got a magnetron at 400 MHz, that should be able to talk to CX-428's radio…'

* * *

Nikki counted to thirty in her head as Mac approached the warehouse's front door, then executed a short code on her laptop. On the other side of the building, Jack, too, counted to thirty in his head, before aiming the weird hairdryer-like thing that Mac had cobbled together at one of the security cameras.

Seconds after Nikki had finished executing the code, the Phoenix tac team pulled up, and the leader, Gonzales, jogged over to her. With a nod in greeting (Gonzales had been with the Phoenix when it was the DXS, had been for years), she began briefing him on the plan that they'd concocted.

(It was more of a plan than Mac usually had.)

(She'd always been the one who was good at plans.)

( _Someone_ had to be.)

* * *

 **MEANWHILE…**

* * *

'…Yeah, you guys aren't cabinetmakers, are you? My girlfriend's not going to be happy, she wanted me to text her a picture of those turquoise shakers that she chose, she's having second thoughts. I _did_ tell her that turquoise was a…well, _interesting_ colour.' Mac turned rather conversationally to the Organization foot soldier who was searching him (not very effectively at all), despite the fact that he was surrounded by men with guns pointed at him and had his hands cuffed behind his back. 'She made me sleep on the couch. It has terrible lumbar support.'

 _I know I'm rambling. I also know that I kind of sound like Jack._

 _We spend too much time together._

 _Way too much time._

A thin, short man with grey hair in a lab coat who looked to be about sixty suddenly strode into the cavernous space from an office-like alcove off to the side.

He looked _furious._

'Do you imbeciles know who that man is?' He had a vague Eastern European accent. All the men surrounding Mac straightened a little, drawing themselves to attention. Several winced slightly, clearly scared of this man, who simply turned to Mac and smiled a very sinister smile. 'Hello, Mr MacGyver. It's a pleasure to meet you at last.'

'Yeah, can't say the same, I'm afraid…?'

The man put a hand over his heart, as if mortified.

'Oh, where are my manners? I am Dr Ivanov.'

At that moment, the man searching Mac finally found the small device (very, very small device) he'd hidden in the back of his left boot. He held it up, confused, and Dr Ivanov's expression darkened.

He clearly recognized it for what it was.

Or, perhaps not exactly what it was, but what it might do, what Mac's intentions had been.

'You imbeciles!' He turned to Mac, fire and fury and rage and something dark, sadistic, in his eyes that the Phoenix agent really, really didn't like. 'You will pay for that!'

Mac finally reached two thousand and fifty in the count that he'd been keeping in his head, and smirked as his sharp ears picked up some familiar sounds.

'No, I won't.'

At that moment, Jack and Gonzales, followed by Nikki and the rest of the Phoenix tac team, burst into the warehouse.

A moment later, several of The Organization foot soldiers were down, having been surprised and overcome, and Mac had dived under a handy nearby table and was working on picking the cuffs on his wrists with a paperclip-lockpick he'd stashed in his shirt cuff.

* * *

'Nikki!'

As she was frantically trying to stop the automatic delete-and-wipe program that Dr Ivanov (whom she'd been chasing for _months,_ but the man was slippery as an eel) had activated on the warehouse's computer system the moment they'd burst in, Nikki found herself tackled to the ground, a body (a very familiar body) over her.

A few seconds later, a bullet went over her and Mac's heads, striking the computer instead. A few seconds after that, Dr Ivanov cried out and swore as his gun was literally shot out of his hands, before Gonzales tackled him and cuffed him, none too gently.

Mac rolled off his ex-girlfriend, and turned his head to face her, both of them still breathing hard, adrenaline pumping.

'You alright?'

Nikki bit back the flirty comment that immediately came to mind (it was an automatic response for her, and old habits died hard), and nodded instead.

(It didn't feel right, not anymore.)

'Yeah, thanks.'

He smiled, jumped to his feet, and offered her a hand up. Nikki groaned as she saw the computer with a bullet hole through it.

'I _just_ managed to stop his wipe!'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'Well, I've got days of interrogations to make a start on.'

Nikki, Allie, Mac, Jack, Bozer, Riley, Jill and Matty variously stood and sat around the war room after debrief, as the blonde CIA agent spoke.

Allie held up the locked (in three ways) carry-on suitcase by her side.

'And I've got to get these back to my lab.'

There was a moment of semi-awkward silence, before, surprisingly, Riley reached out a hand to Allie, and the two women clasped hands for a moment, before they both simultaneously pulled each other into a hug.

Mac and Nikki glanced at each other, as Riley let go of Allie and Bozer reached out to hug the CIA engineer in farewell, and after a moment, Nikki reached up and wrapped her arms around him in a way that wasn't _quite_ familiar.

(It was, if it were possible, a different kind of hug than the ones they'd used to share.)

'Thanks, Mac.'

He smiled over her shoulder.

'Anytime.'

After a beat, they let go of each other, and Mac leaned down a little to hug Allie, while Nikki found herself in front of Jack. The older man stared at her for a long moment, something a tiny bit sad, maybe even a tiny bit wistful, in his eyes, before he smiled that Jack Dalton smile and held up his arms.

'For old times' sake?'

Nikki smiled back and hugged him.

(Jack gave really, really great hugs.)

(For a long time, she'd thought she'd had her last.)

* * *

After Nikki and Allie left, Matty turned to Mac and Jack and pointed very firmly at them.

'You two, get your butts down to the infirmary, you're due for your physicals.'

(The Phoenix Foundation mandated that all employees had a physical every six months.)

The partners groaned. Jack attempted to appeal to their boss, slinging an arm around Mac's shoulders.

'Come on, Matty, our boy's had a _day._ Can't we just reschedule?' Matty simply raised an eyebrow at Jack. 'Come on!'

Matty's eyebrow rose higher, and Jack just emitted a sigh of defeat.

Matty _had_ earned her nickname for a reason.

* * *

When Mac and Jack reached the infirmary, Beth was standing in front of a curtained-off area expectantly, her stethoscope around her neck. She smiled in greeting.

'Hello, Mac, hello, Jack. Who's going first?'

Both field agents smiled at the doctor (Jack hid a smirk when he noticed that his partner brightened on finding out that she was going to be conducting their physicals – he'd put a hundred bucks on the fact that Matty had deliberately arranged for Beth to do Mac's physical, if only because he was somewhat more inclined to listen to her than other medical professionals), before clenching their right fists over their left hands and turning to one another and counting to three.

Jack had rock. Mac had scissors.

The blonde groaned, as Jack pointed at him with a smug smirk.

'He is.'

There was a very amused smile on Beth's face, and she seemed to be holding back a chuckle, as Mac sat down on one of the two beds in the curtained-off area. The doctor addressed him, gesturing with her head towards Jack.

'Do you want him to stay or go?'

Mac gave a mischievous, teasing smile as Beth tightened the blood pressure monitor's cuff around his right arm.

'He can stay; his incessant and usually pointless and/or irrelevant rambling is oddly soothing.'

Jack crossed his arms grumpily as he plopped himself down on the other bed.

'It is _not_ pointless or irrelevant! You just don't appreciate the subtle lessons I'm trying to teach you, man!'

'Last week, you spent _half an hour_ telling me about this chimichanga you ate when you were sixteen while we were driving back to the Phoenix!'

'I was trying to take our minds off the whole stinking-like-a-sewer- _literally_ problem we had!' Jack pointed at the younger man. 'Besides, it was the best thing I'd ever eaten at that point in my life!'

As Beth, having removed the blood pressure cuff, finished noting down his blood pressure, Mac turned to her and gestured towards Jack, his expression very much _see what I have to put up with?_

She gave a little chuckle, then held up her stethoscope, glancing very quickly, eyes evaluative, at Mac's chest.

'Undo the first three buttons, please, Mac.' He did as she asked, and she stepped forward to listen to his heart and lungs. 'Deep breath in…and out.'

Over Beth's head, Jack waggled his eyebrows, smirked and then winked. Mac shot him a _look,_ but was summarily ignored.

'Be extra gentle with him, Doc, not that he ain't super-tough and all, but he's had a rough day.' Mac shot him another _look_ and was ignored yet again. Jack's smirk just widened. 'Not one, but _two_ of his exes showed up.'

Beth removed the stethoscope, done with her observations, and noted them down on her tablet, before looking up and shooting Mac a sympathetic look.

'Oh, _ouch_. I'm sorry.'

'Jack's exaggerating, it really wasn't that bad.'

Jack crossed his arms.

'Oh, really, Mr-Go-Hide-in-the-Bathroom?'

'I was _not_ hiding!'

As Mac and Jack continued to bicker, Beth put on a pair of gloves and grabbed two already-labelled vials. She showed Mac the vials, before rolling up his sleeve, tying the tourniquet and finding a vein, sterilizing the site and then carefully inserting the needle as gently as she could.

Mac didn't even notice it go in.

Beth smiled as he looked down and blinked twice in surprise that she'd already finished taking the first vial.

Mac and Jack's legendary bickering (it really _was_ legendary – she'd heard stories about it from other Phoenix employees before she'd even met them) was really amusing.

It was also very helpful.

She was quite sure she wouldn't have to break out the _Dora the Explorer_ Band-Aids this time.

* * *

AN: This is probably the first time I've written a sympathetic depiction of Nikki (at least, I hope she came across as somewhat sympathetic…), in all of my time writing _MacGyver_ fanfic. I hope you guys don't think I made Mac suffer too much! This episode was one of the very first ones that I planned out for this story; I've been wanting a proper end/closure to the Mac/Nikki and Organization storylines for ages, but I've accepted that Flashlight and Cigar Cutter, respectively, will be the best we get (presumably for casting reasons – but as a fanfic author, I'm not restricted by things like guest star availability and costs!). I've also really, really wanted Jack and Nikki to have that conversation they had in the safehouse for ages, and it seemed natural to bring Allie in too (to tie up her storyline with Mac, and so that Bozer can have a similar chat to her, and for the humour of making poor Mac suffer!). Hopefully, you guys think I did a good job! (I had a lot of fun writing this episode; especially the stuff with improving Sparky at the start, the Panamanian ambassador/sewage incident, the expense reports and Mac and Jack's physicals at the end – honestly, the show itself puts out so much absurd, near-crack stuff, which means at we can get away with it in our fanfic, which I absolutely love!)

In other news – I've realized that there are quite a lot of scenes I want to include in this story, but feel that I can't, because they don't fit the tones I'm going for at certain times, or will slow the pace too much or just don't quite fit (I have much more sympathy for the show's writers – it's so easy to criticize, so hard to create!). So, I'm starting a companion piece titled _Detours,_ which will consist of 'episode tags'. The first one is for this episode and is titled Turnabout.

Here's the summary: Riley, Bozer and Mac (well, mostly Bozer) celebrate their success at _Parent Trap_ -ping Jack and Diane, and Mac gives Jack a little payback. Turnabout _is_ fair play.

That'll be up mid-week, probably Wednesday.

And here's the press release for the next episode:

3.06, Dawn to Dusk. Dawn walks into the Phoenix, claiming that she has intel on another major counterfeiting operation, but can the team trust her again? Meanwhile, Jack, Diane and Elwood find themselves in an awkward situation.


	6. Dawn to Dusk

AN: Warning on this chapter for human trafficking and (implied) sexual exploitation of minors.

* * *

 **CHEZ DALTON**

 **LA**

* * *

With a grin with a touch of a smirk in it, Jack, wearing dark-wash jeans, a black dress shirt and his best leather jacket, unlocked his front door, as Diane, in a little black dress with bold gold jewellery, stood very, very close to him, their sides brushing, with a cat-that-ate-the-canarysmile on her face, running a hand up and down his arm in a way that was deliberately seemingly-idle, but was definitely not idle at all.

The door unlocked, and Jack turned the tables on her by tugging her through the doorway and spinning her around, dropping his keys somewhere on the floor, not that he cared at all. Diane laughed musically, in a way that made her seem twenty years younger, then pulled him towards her and kissed him.

Two very pleasant seconds later, they were interrupted by a deliberate throat-clearing.

Instantly, Jack was on alert, and shoved Diane behind him, hand going to the back of his boot, where he had a knife hidden, as always.

(He also cursed himself internally for letting himself get so carried away, so distracted, that he hadn't noticed the presence of another person in his apartment.)

(Then again, it was _his_ apartment. It had a state-of-the-art security system built by Mac; he'd upgraded after Dawn had stolen his precious flatscreen.)

(And Diane was so very easy to get lost in, get lost with.)

In the shadowy, dark living area (they hadn't bothered turning on any of the lights), a figure got up from one of Jack's La-Z-Boys, hands up.

Diane had pulled out her phone and turned on the torch function, and she pointed the light at the figure.

(She was no soldier or spy or secret agent, and she certainly didn't have a black belt in any martial art, but she had sharp wits and street-smarts and common sense.)

(And she'd done _lots_ of self-defence classes.)

Both she and Jack relaxed as they recognized the man in Jack's living room…and then exchanged a glance. An uncomfortable glance.

A _why-did-this-have-to-happen-to-me_ glance.

Elwood Davis, looking very much like he agreed with that sentiment, spoke, raising a hand and waggling his fingers in greeting.

'Hello, Jack. Hello, Diane.'

Jack rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly feeling a lot more sympathetic to what Mac had gone through the week before when Nikki and Allie had shown up at the Phoenix.

'Hey, Elwood.' He paused. 'You should probably stop letting yourself in…'

Mac's security system had been programmed to recognize Elwood as a friend and thus let him into Jack's apartment. He stopped by from time-to-time; Elwood had won respect from Jack with the Baseball Incident, and even though it was a bit weird, it seemed to make Riley happy that they got along. It also seemed that Elwood viewed Jack as a model of a 'good man' and someone who could help keep him on the straight and narrow.

(Jack would not pull any punches if it looked like Elwood would do anything that'd hurt Riley or Diane ever again.)

(Both figuratively and literally.)

Diane eyed her ex-husband coolly for a moment, before walking towards the kitchen to get herself a drink, and one for Jack.

(She accepted that her ex had changed, really, this time. That he was trying to be a better man. She trusted her baby girl's judgement.)

(She accepted that Riley was building a relationship with him, and supported that. She was happy for her baby girl.)

(She even accepted the friendship of sorts that Elwood and Jack had. Jack was a good influence on Elwood, and since that'd help prevent him from doing something that'd hurt her daughter again, of course she was fine with it. Elwood needed more friends who weren't crooks and conmen.)

(Besides, she wasn't Jack's keeper. They'd found each other again in their forties; they had entire, separate lives independent of each other, something which they'd agreed to respect as they wove their lives together again.)

(Still, she could never, ever be friends with the man.)

(Not after what he'd done to her.)

Elwood watched with something sad, something hurt, something regretful and full of self-loathing, as Diane handed Jack a drink, pointedly giving him a quick peck as she handed it over.

But there was also acceptance in his eyes.

Diane had always deserved far better than him.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…All I'm saying, man, is that sometimes, you gotta let the Wookie win.'

Jack pointed sagely at Mac as the two of them walked into work. The blonde made an incredulous, exasperated gesture with his hands, his expression matching.

'A, this situation is not even a correct application of that concept, and B-'

Whatever B was, Mac didn't get a chance to say it, because Beth happened to walk by, saw Jack and immediately bustled over and started talking to him.

'Jack, I've been trying to get a hold of you, I sent you five texts…' She trailed off as she noticed the phone in Jack's hand, brow furrowing, thinking about loud. 'Well, at the very least, you can't have missed my last message because Mac commandeered your phone again…'

Mac had the good grace to give her a sheepish little smile, rubbing the back of his neck, before shooting his partner a _look._

Jack steadfastly ignored him.

'Umm…uh…he did use it for a little something-something yesterday.' He turned from the doctor to Mac. 'Brother, you do something to it that could've messed with my reception or deleted my messages or something?' He turned back to Beth. ''Cause I haven't got anything from you, Doc.'

Mac shot Jack another _look,_ crossing his arms. Beth raised her brows very sceptically, clearly not believing Jack's excuses, and narrowed her eyes at him.

(Mac hid a smirk.)

 _Yeah…I admit I'm looking forward to this._

 _A, it is nice to be on the other side._

 _B, schadenfreude. I'm only human._

 _And C, since when have I not loved getting one up on Jack?_

Jack, however, was saved from being scolded by the fierce little doctor by his phone ringing.

He glanced down at the caller ID, and immediately answered.

Matty's voice rang out over Jack's phone.

'Dalton, Baby Einstein, get your butts to Reception _now.'_

Jack immediately started heading back out towards the Phoenix's reception, clearly not looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Besides, Matty's tone brooked absolutely no argument, even more than usual.

Mac started jogging backwards in the same direction, though not before glancing over at Beth, who had a wry, exasperated and slightly concerned, all at once, little smile on her face.

'I'll make sure he comes to see you.'

Her smile softened and widened a touch.

'Thanks, Mac.'

He gave a quick nod of acknowledgement, turned and jogged a little faster.

Matty would _not_ be happy if she judged him to be 'late'.

 _You know, I don't reckon it's true, but there's probably enough evidence in my life to suggest that in women, scariness is inversely proportional to size._

* * *

Mac caught up to Jack just as they walked out of the double doors and into Reception.

Well, caught up in a loose sense.

He very nearly _collided_ with his partner, only skidding to a halt (he'd run part of the way, because he _really, really_ did not want to be late) as Jack stopped in his tracks.

He took in the blonde woman standing in the room, dressed in (ironically) that same brown jacket they'd seen her in last, her hands up.

Mac watched the older man's face cycle through several emotions (shock and denial, hurt and pain…) before settling on something angry. Seething.

'You got a lot of nerve showing up here, Dawn.'

The sort-of ex-conwoman, in a gesture that was clearly a concession to honesty (to that…friendship…that she had with Jack), gave a little nod, before speaking.

'I need your help.' Something that looked like a pained plea crossed her face. Something that _did_ tug on Jack's heartstrings (he'd always worn his heart on his sleeve, after all), even if he knew he absolutely shouldn't believe it. (Dawn was a master actress, a consummate liar, who'd played him like a fiddle twice already. Played them all.) ' _They_ need your help.'

* * *

'Last week, I stumbled upon another ring of counterfeiters turning ones into Benjamin Franklins.'

Mac, Jack, Matty, Bozer and Riley all sat and stood around the war room, Mac toying with a paperclip that was rapidly taking the shape of a dollar sign, as Dawn explained why she'd come to the Phoenix and surrendered, despite being on several Most Wanted lists.

(Though not as many as she should have been on.)

(Matty had pulled some strings.)

(She'd made sure that all official records showed that only $4 million had been recovered in Peru, and that the liquidation of Julian's substantial assets included a $1 million donation to Barberry Children's Home.)

(None of them could even seriously contemplate taking the money from the orphans.)

(And honestly…if there was ever a reason to steal $1 million from the US government, that was it.)

 _Her motives were good._

 _Her means were…questionable to say the least._

 _And she lied to us and betrayed our trust again._

 _She lied to Jack and betrayed his trust again._

 _Yeah,_ it's complicated _doesn't even really begin to describe it._

Jack muttered just a little too loudly for it to have been to himself.

'You mean you were scouting out your next mark or marks.'

Dawn crossed her arms and quirked an eyebrow at him.

'A girl's gotta make a living. Figured y'all be happier if I stole from the bad guys.' Dawn's expression grew serious again, something nearly _haunted_ appearing in her eyes. 'Turns out that these bad guys weren't just counterfeiters. They're using their fake bills to fund another…operation.' She tapped the screen, and a whole series of pictures of teenagers, mostly girls, appeared. A few were missing persons posters, but most of them were random social media photos or from Social Services case files. 'They lure them in with the promise of a better life.' Dawn tapped the screen again, and the image changed to several shots of two of the girls who'd been in the previous photos, eyes lifeless and scared. They appeared to be working as waitresses of a sort in a very dodgy-looking bar, though they all got the (very unpleasant and horrifying, even after all they'd seen in their line of work) feeling that they weren't there to bus tables. Dawn swallowed as she stared at the pictures, which had clearly been clandestinely taken, presumably by her, for a moment. 'They don't get it.' She turned and looked at them, making eye contact with Matty first, then Bozer, then Riley, then Mac and then Jack, holding the latter's gaze the longest. 'I couldn't let them get away with, I couldn't not help those girls…'

After a moment of holding her gaze, Jack looked away, and at Matty instead.

(It wasn't that he was convinced she was lying.)

(He was convinced she was telling the truth, this time.)

(Dawn was no monster.)

(Far from it.)

(In fact, Jack believed, she'd have grown into a very good woman if not for her honestly horrible childhood.)

(He hadn't been able to help that swell of respect for her that he'd felt, just then.)

(Oh, he had no delusions that Dawn was going to go quietly off to trial and then prison at the end of this.)

(None at all.)

(But, he believed, she was willing to give herself more trouble and hassle and put up with him being furious with her – which he still was – by popping up on the radar again instead of keeping her head down to help those kids.)

(Still, he wasn't trusting her again.)

(He refused to.)

(It was the principle of the matter.)

Matty eyed both Dawn and Jack for a moment, as if weighing them, before speaking.

'Riley, I want everything you can find on these dirt-bags. If they order Uber Eats, I wanna know about it…'

* * *

'…Monique Quinn, seventeen, from Seattle. Parents are divorced…' Riley's nails clacked on her keyboard as she ran down the identities of the girls that Dawn had managed to photograph. '…she and her mom have a restraining order against her father…' Riley swallowed reflexively. '…after her mom was hospitalized four times over three years.'

Dawn, who was looking over Riley's shoulder as Bozer dug through a money trail that Riley had managed to dig up, glanced at the young hacker, with sympathy (or, perhaps more accurately, empathy) in her eyes, but absolutely no pity.

(Dawn would hate pity.)

(She figured Riley would be exactly the same.)

Riley didn't like Dawn. She was bad news for Jack in her book. Trouble, with a capital T.

Besides, Jack and her mom had each other again, had just worked things out, and they were happy, so very happy, and that was all Riley had ever wanted for them.

She didn't want a spanner to be thrown into the works now.

Still, she got the sense that the two of them understood each other, had something in common.

Which they also shared with the trafficking-and-counterfeiting ring's victims.

So, she gave a little nod of acknowledgement, of thanks, to the older woman, and kept working, just a tiny bit even more motivated than before.

'…and Julia Lopez, sixteen, lives in foster care in San Diego…has since the age of four.'

Riley glanced up at Dawn, saw _something_ flash through her eyes that confirmed her earlier suspicions, and offered her that same glance, that empathy with no pity, that Dawn had given her earlier.

The (ex?) conwoman actually looked the tiniest bit surprised for no more than half a second, before she gave a little smile and a nod.

Her laptop chimed, and Riley pulled up the results of one of her nifty little programs, and showed Dawn the picture of the man (along with a very long rap sheet) that'd come up.

The blonde woman gave a terse, almost-angry nod.

'Yeah, I've seen him 'round the girls. And seen him rough them up too.'

Riley, too, shot the man on the screen a glare, and with vehemence, began digging out a list of known associates.

They were taking these bastards down.

* * *

Ten minutes later, while Bozer was taking a bathroom break, Riley turned to Dawn again.

'I know you're here for the right reasons. You're doing the right thing.' Her eyes hardened. 'Keep doing it.'

The _or else you'll find your prints and DNA linked to every open homicide case in the country and I'll erase your existence with a few keystrokes_ went unspoken.

(It didn't need to be said again.)

Dawn crossed her arms, leaned against the desk with faux-casualness.

'I'm still not conning Jack. Y'all can calm down; I didn't last time, and I'm not gonna.'

Riley raised an eyebrow at her.

'Last time, you stole $1 million.'

'From the US government, sweetie. And it was for a good cause.'

Riley refused to let her expression soften (even though it'd have taken a much colder person than her to not admit that Dawn's 'redistribution' of the money had probably done more good than returning it to its rightful owner), and crossed her own arms instead.

'You still hurt him.'

That made Dawn look away for a beat, before she looked back at Riley, studied her expression for a moment, then gave a small smile.

'I don't steal from other women, Riley.'

The hacker snorted.

'You're a thief and a conwoman. Stealing is pretty much your job description.'

'I don't steal another woman's man.' She paused, something sardonic crossing her face. 'At least, not if he doesn't _want_ to be stolen.' Riley snorted again, and Dawn sought out her eyes, something a little sad, a little wistful, maybe a touch regretful, in her own blue ones. 'Jack's not gonna let himself be stolen.'

(That, Riley acknowledged, was true.)

(Jack was a flirt. He was a lover of women, all women. She full well knew that he'd carried a torch for more than one lady at a time.)

(But, at the end of the day, Jack was faithful. He wasn't going to cheat on her mom; Riley knew that.)

(But she did know that he cared about Dawn, possibly more than he should, and probably always would.)

(Jack, she was well aware, was a cuddly, soft teddy bear, despite his closer resemblance to an actual bear in terms of the whole _I'm-a-really-badass-ex-Delta-Force-ex-CIA-covert-operative-who-is-Wookie-level-protective_ thing.)

(She could really, really hurt him.)

(Again.)

(And that was something Riley wouldn't stand for.)

She let all that show on her face, holding Dawn's gaze for a long moment.

'Great to know, but that's not my point.' Riley waggled her fingers and gestured to her laptop. 'Just remember…it'd only take a couple of keystrokes.'

Dawn held her gaze for a beat, then nodded, in acknowledgment, acceptance, and, Riley swore, respect.

* * *

Jack was just washing his hands when Mac walked into the men's bathroom and leaned with very affected casualness against the door.

Jack looked incredulously at him.

' _Seriously,_ brother?'

Mac shrugged, a touch of a smirk growing on his face.

'Turnabout _is_ fair play, Jack.' His expression grew softer, more serious. Concerned. 'You okay?'

Jack shook his head, but there was something soft, fond on his face, in his eyes. Then, he grew more serious, looked up and into the mirror, bracing his hands on the sink, for a long moment, before turning back to his partner.

'I got all the woman I want, and all the woman I can handle, brother. And Dawn's trouble. Exciting, yeah, I'll give her that, but I got plenty of excitement, and I don't reckon I want that brand of excitement anyway.' He shrugged. 'And she ain't the settling-down type, and settling down, man, I gotta admit, that's got its appeals.'

For a second, Mac looked a touch incredulous and exasperated, because that was _exactly_ what he'd told Jack on the plane to Lima the last time Dawn had been around.

(Safe to say, that time, Jack had been on the other side of the fence.)

Then, he shook his head with exasperated fondness and reached out and clasped Jack's shoulder.

'Glad to hear.'

* * *

'…We've got an address for part of their counterfeiting operation.'

Riley continued as Bozer finished speaking.

'They're due to make a delivery of $5 million in counterfeit cash at 7 PM tonight, to pay one of their _recruiters_ for a _shipment_.'

The last few words were said with great revulsion and barely-restrained anger.

Matty nodded, and turned to Jack, Mac and Dawn.

'Go. Get everything you can out of those SOBs.'

Mac, Dawn and Jack all nodded seriously, even as the latter gave a little salute, and immediately headed towards the garage.

* * *

 **WAREHOUSE**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Mac grabbed a handful of the fake cash from the huge stack on a pallet in front of him, and flung it in the face of the low-ranking member of the syndicate behind him, blinding the man temporarily, before kicking the back of his left knee to cause him to stumble and punching him with just enough force to knock him out. The man crumpled to the floor like a sack of potatoes, and Mac turned his attention to the other counterfeiter who was trying to sneak up on him, shoving the pile of cash on the pallet into the man, which made him stumble. Meanwhile, Jack clubbed the third counterfeiter on the head with the butt of his gun, quickly disarming the man (why only one of them was armed, they didn't really know – Mac had theories of course – but they weren't going to look a gift horse in the mouth), then head-butted the man whom Mac had shoved the money at, causing him to drop to the ground, unconscious, too.

Mac and Jack were just about to start securing the three unconscious criminals when they heard a voice cry out.

A female voice.

A _familiar_ female voice.

They exchanged a glance, and took off running in the direction of the voice.

(They hadn't tried to leave Dawn in the car. She'd never have listened. Besides, they weren't inclined to let her far out of their sight either.)

(She was _supposed_ to have waited in a quiet, isolated and rather hidden corner of the warehouse while they took out the counterfeiters.)

(It wasn't as if she had any combat training, after all.)

Mac and Jack skidded to a halt in front of a pile of duffle bags stuffed with fake Benjamin Franklins, to find that the fourth counterfeiter was in the middle of falling unconscious at Dawn's feet.

She lowered her fists and rolled the man onto his side with her foot and smirked at them.

'Y'all missed one, boys.' Jack still looked shocked. Mac was muttering to himself about how he really should have realized that it was highly probable that Dawn had far-better-than-average self-defence capabilities. She rolled her eyes, smirk widening a bit, and got to work cuffing the man's wrists together with his own belt. Very competently. 'I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself.'

There was something in her voice that suggested she'd _had_ to learn to take care of herself. In order to survive.

Jack shook himself out of his shock, eyeing her with a mixture of respect and sympathy, and grabbed the unconscious man under the armpits to drag him back to the others. Meanwhile, Mac jogged back off towards where they'd left the other counterfeiters to secure them, though not before giving Dawn a rather impressed smile and nod.

The blonde woman moved to help Jack drag the guy (he was big, and heavy), not bothering to even try and be gentle.

(She might not be able to handle a bunch of thugs with guns, but one unarmed guy?)

(That she could do.)

(She'd had no choice but to learn. The hard way.)

* * *

By the time Jack and Dawn got the fourth counterfeiter back to the area where they'd left the other three, Mac had finished securing them (they were all tied to chairs using their own belts and shoelaces).

He was also, for some reason, winding the clock that'd been hanging on the wall forward several hours.

Mac finished changing the time on the clock, double-checked something on his phone, and then held the clock out to Jack.

'Put that back up.' He turned to Dawn. 'Can you start trashing the place?' She raised an eyebrow at him. 'Like you were searching for something but having a lot of trouble finding it.'

Jack, doing as Mac had told him to do (his partner was crazy, but his crazy got results, as his record attested), nonetheless made a face.

'Brother, what bizarre idea have those hamster wheels of yours thrown out now?'

Mac was now rummaging around in the small kitchenette. He made a noise of satisfaction as he pulled out a packet of herbal tea bags and some artificial sweetener and set them on the counter.

'A, that is not how the brain works, Jack!' He ducked under the sink, found a bottle of some kind of orange cleaning fluid, and jumped up, a little smirk on his face. 'B, we're going to travel into the future.'

Jack pointed at him.

'We're bringing back a hoverboard, okay? That's non-negotiable, man.'

Mac rolled his eyes, and gestured to the clock, which showed that it was, apparently, 7:30 PM, before turning again and grabbing a series of containers.

'We're only going forward six hours. Inventing a hoverboard, at least, a _Back-to-the-Future-_ style hoverboard, in six hours is impossible.'

Jack crossed his arms.

'Didn't that professor of yours say that impossible wasn't a thing?'

Mac had filled the containers with water and was now dropping tea bags and cleaning fluid into the water in seemingly-specific amounts.

'Go and pull down the window shades, Jack.' He held up one of the containers and shone his Swiss Army knife's flashlight through it, making a noise of satisfaction at the colour of the light that passed through. 'Professor V said that impossible was not a scientific term. His point was _not_ that nothing is impossible...'

Meanwhile, Dawn, busy trashing the place as instructed, just listened and observed, shaking her head occasionally, a little smile on her face.

There was a touch of something wistful in her eyes too.

(She'd always had to take care of herself.)

(She'd always been on her own.)

* * *

'Oh, the Sleeping Beauties are finally awake!'

Jack crossed his arms and smirked sardonically as the four men, all securely bound to chairs, finally stirred. Dawn, perched on the edge of a huge stack of cash on a pallet, smirked too, while Mac, leaning against a table, falsely casual, gestured to the windows. There was soft, slightly-pink/orange light filtering under the shades.

He and Jack watched as all four of the men's eyes widened, growing fearful and panicked, before one of them shook his head.

'You gotta be bluffing us, there's no way we've been out for hours…'

Mac, however, just gave a little smirk and held up a small bottle of clear liquid, opening it and wafting some of the sickly-sweet fumes towards them.

'I might have overdone it a little on the chloroform…'

The man gulped.

With near-identical looks on their faces, Jack spoke first, then Mac, the two of them synchronized perfectly without having to even glance at one another.

'You're late for your delivery, boys.'

'Your bosses are _not_ going to be happy about that.'

'Ours hates it when we're late, and she's actually got to worry about little things like the law.'

'Yours…well, they don't have as many restrictions, do they?'

The man who'd called them out as bluffing straightened himself up as best as he could.

'We're not telling you anything.'

That was spat out derisively. Mac and Jack exchanged a glance, then shrugged.

'Well, if they ain't got any useful intel…'

'The boss won't let us take them with us.'

'Guess we'll just have to leave 'em here for _their_ bosses to deal with.' Jack scratched under his chin thoughtfully. 'How long you reckon they'll have before they come to take out the trash?'

Mac, too, tapped his chin thoughtfully.

'Well, taking into account LA traffic at this time, plus the average soil density and texture in the Greater LA area, assuming average fitness levels-'

One of the men (who'd been looking the jumpiest and most frightened) cut Mac off.

'Alright, what do you want to know?'

The one who'd called their bluff earlier glared at him, while the other two avoided the gaze of the glarer. They seemed to agree more with their colleague who wanted to talk.

Dawn spoke up, getting up off the pile of cash, her voice cold, cutting.

'Where are the girls?' She paused, fury building. 'Oh, sorry, you probably don't know what I mean. What do you call them, a _shipment_?'

The guy full of bravado (he probably fancied himself their leader) snorted.

'Oh, come on, you don't ask about the money, you don't ask about our boss, you wanna know where some runaway chicks that no-one's gonna miss are? Your priorities are messed up, woman!'

Dawn _pounced_ on him.

Mac and Jack exchanged a quick glance, and with some reluctance (he had to admit, even though he was very much against violence, this guy probably deserved it), Mac pulled Dawn off him.

Jack, meanwhile, had fire and anger and fury in his eyes…and, Mac realized, as his partner glanced at the (ex?)-conwoman, it wasn't just directed at the revolting individual that Dawn had quite literally left her claw marks on.

Without a word, Mac tugged Dawn back towards the quiet, isolated nook of the warehouse they'd left her in an hour ago.

Jack, meanwhile, cracked his knuckles.

'We gonna do this the easy way, or the hard way? I'm giving you a hint, pick the easy way; you just got a taste of the hard way, gentlemen…and let me tell you, that taste was just the amuse-bouche…trust me, you don't want the entrée.'

* * *

Mac, whose grip on Dawn had been slackening as they'd gotten further from Jack and their prisoners (and she'd stopped fighting against him as much), let go of her when they reached that nook, and she immediately turned away, still breathing hard, but much calmer than she'd been.

'This…this is personal for you, isn't it?' He paused, shifting a little, simultaneously worried and sympathetic and a touch horrified, as well as awkward and unsure. 'You…you see yourself in those girls.'

 _Yeah, probably not the most tactful or smooth thing to say…but it is the truth, I think._

 _And I'm not really very good at this sort of thing._

Dawn gave a very bitter snort.

'Oh, you have no idea, Mac, how close I was to being one of those girls.'

(Once upon a time, she'd been young and vulnerable and struggling to survive. An easy target. Easy prey.)

(She'd bet her bottom dollar that once upon a time, Riley had been young and vulnerable and struggling to survive too. Maybe not quite so literally as Dawn had been for a while, but fighting all the same.)

(Riley had been drawn into the dark web, into black-hat work, clearly.)

(Dawn…well, she was pretty good with computers, but she couldn't hold a candle to Riley.)

(It'd never have been the dark web she'd gotten caught in.)

There was something in her tone of voice that told Mac to absolutely not press any further.

He was quiet for a moment, before speaking again, voice resolute.

'We'll take them down, and rescue those girls. I promise.'

Dawn finally turned around at that, met his eyes for a moment, then nodded with a very small, very wan smile.

(She took Mac's promise seriously. She knew they were just words, and words were cheap and empty and couldn't be trusted …except when they came from the mouths of people like Mac. Or Jack.)

(The sort of person that she'd known far too few of in her life.)

* * *

Jack, his phone pinned between his shoulder and his ear, talked to Riley and Bozer back at the Phoenix while he finished locking the still-restrained counterfeiters in the warehouse's bathroom.

(It was the only room with a lock.)

(He'd used a trick that he'd picked up from Mac over their many years of working together to jam the locking mechanism so it couldn't be unlocked from the inside.)

(The syndicate members were apparently very low-ranking and didn't know much, they'd sworn up and down.)

(He believed them, but he'd used every trick he knew to get absolutely anything of use out of them.)

(He wasn't Cage or Matty, but Jack was a pretty good interrogator himself.)

(Now, it was up to Riley and Bozer to use that intel and get them a location on the girls and the syndicate leaders, ASAP.)

'…Got that, Ri?' Jack gave a little smile as she replied in the affirmative, then whirled around, pulling out his gun, as he heard footsteps behind him, to find Mac and Dawn twenty feet away. Jack's eyes grew set, and he closed that distance in several quick strides, gesturing vaguely but with great force. Anger. ' _What was that,_ Dawn? You could've messed up our whole op!'

'Y'all heard him!' As Dawn gave Jack as good as she'd gotten, Mac took a step back, _really_ not wanting to get drawn into it, mind racing as he tried to think of the best way to defuse this situation, stat. (He'd rather take a bomb. Much easier problem to solve.) 'If Riley had been one of those girls, if he was talking 'bout her, you'd have gone all yippy-kay-yay, mother-'

Mac tried to step between Jack and Dawn, who'd gotten almost-literally into each other's faces, holding out a hand to each of them.

'Guys, this really isn't the time…how about we, um, deal with this later?'

'No, we gotta deal with this now before she messes up again, 'cause clearly, she ain't got her emotions in check-'

' _I_ haven't got my emotions in check?'

Mac winced and kicked himself internally as Jack and Dawn's yelling and gesticulating grew more intense.

(He had a sneaking suspicion that he might have just made it worse while trying to make it better.)

(His track record in these situations was pretty poor, admittedly.)

He hesitated a moment as he backed away, wondering if he was doing the right thing, but also at a complete loss as to how his presence was going to help, and really worried about making it even worse while trying to make it better.

Besides…Jack and Dawn _did_ need to have a private conversation.

He didn't think the timing was ideal (they were in the middle of a mission, one with a tight timeline – they had to find those girls before they were moved), but then again, Riley and Bozer were busy running down the intel that Jack had extracted, they couldn't exactly make a move until they had a location (or two) for them, and Jack did have a point, sort-of.

This tension between him and Dawn?

It had to be resolved, and the longer it went on, the more likely it would blow up in their faces, which really could have a negative impact on their ability to do their job.

To do as Mac had promised Dawn they would.

He slipped away, completely unnoticed by the other two, and got to work stripping the bad guys' HQ of anything he thought might come in handy.

* * *

Breathing hard, Jack and Dawn stood almost nose-to-nose, having, somehow, run out of things to yell at each other.

After a long moment, they each took a step back, some of that anger and fury and fight seeping out of both of them, replaced by softer looks of remorse and hurt.

'I…I shouldn't have said that, 'bout Riley. And I should have kept my cool earlier.'

'I'm sorry for…' Jack gestured vaguely. 'Losing it at you.' He hesitated, glancing over at her. 'I mean, pretty obvious this hits home for you.'

He admittedly sounded quite like he was fishing.

The silence between them stretched thin, before Dawn looked away from him, voice growing quiet, confessional.

'I was one of those girls, for a very short time.' She swallowed, chancing a glance up at Jack, and was relieved to find that along with the expected sympathy in his eyes, there was something best described as respect, for her strength. 'I got myself out. Not everyone gets the chance.'

'These girls are gonna get it. Promise.'

Dawn managed a small smile, something lightly teasing in it.

'You're too late, Mac already did.' She paused, expression growing serious again. 'And since we're clearing the air…I'm not gonna steal you or your heart, Jack.' Her expression grew teasing and wry again. 'No promises on anything else.'

Jack studied her for a brief second, a soft little smile appearing on his face, then gave a snort and shook his head.

'You're never gonna change, are you?'

Something a touch bitter, a touch wistful, with a dollop of wry humour, but, above all, raw honesty, filled her voice.

'A leopard never changes her spots. Not even in retirement.'

* * *

'…We've tracked down the syndicate's HQ, and where they're keeping the girls.'

Bozer, on Mac's phone screen, spoke, followed by Riley, who was sitting next to him.

'Gonzales' team is standing by.'

They all knew that it'd have to be a simultaneous raid; take out the HQ first, they'd lose the girls, save the girls first, and the syndicate leaders would be in the wind.

Mac, Jack and Dawn didn't even have to exchange a glance, Jack simply spoke.

'Riles, send us the location for the girls, Gonzales and his team can take out the big-bads.'

* * *

 **SYNDICATE HQ**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…Alpha team, ready.'

'Beta team in position.'

'Gamma ready to go, boss.'

Sitting in the van, imagery from a very stealthy scout drone (a Phoenix invention) on her laptop, Riley listened as Gonzales' team prepared for the assault.

'Riley, we good to go?'

'Yeah, Alpha team, you'll have hostiles on your left on entry. Beta, you're clear for now. Gamma, your entry corridor splits fifty feet in.'

'Got it. On my signal. One, two, three…'

* * *

 **ANOTHER WAREHOUSE**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Twenty feet from the warehouse's side entrance, Mac and Dawn hid behind two stacked pallets of concrete pavers, ears pricked.

As the very first loud bang from the flash-bang grenade cannon that Mac had put together rang out in the vicinity of the warehouse's front entrance, they ran towards the side door, Mac already pulling out a couple of paperclips to pick the lock.

* * *

Meanwhile, out the front of the warehouse, Jack grinned as he drove the modified forklift (it resembled an improvised tank, being covered with sheets of corrugated iron as 'armour') into the door, a la battering ram.

(Mac had also weighted and reinforced the forklift.)

(It only took four rams before the door gave way and he drove into the warehouse.)

Through a specially-placed hole in the forklift's armour, he fired off several shots, hitting several of the bad guys guarding the warehouse in the shoulder or the knee, before ramming into two others with the forklift.

At the same time, Mac's really awesome flash-bang grenade cannon kept firing, confusing and startling the men.

Jack's grin widened as he drove into another guard.

'Woo hoo! Best idea ever, man!'

* * *

Mac and Dawn, taking advantage of Jack's very loud and very attention-grabbing distraction, which had drawn all of the guards to the other side of the warehouse, scurried through the building, until they came upon a shipping container from which banging noises were emanating.

Mac immediately got to work picking the lock, and in less than twenty seconds (he was _really_ motivated, just a little more than usual), pulled the doors open, to reveal eleven teenage girls, sitting close together in twos and threes for comfort and possibly warmth.

They were also all shackled by their ankles to the container's walls, which made his stomach turn.

 _And_ the girl sitting closest to the door was holding a sharpened plastic spoon and seemed very ready to stab him with it if she thought he was going to hurt them.

Mac raised his hands and waved somewhat awkwardly instead.

'Uh, hi. I'm MacGyver…' He gestured to Dawn, who had a very mama-bear look on her face, angry and fiercely protective and somehow soft and caring, all at once. '…and this is Dawn. We're here to help, I promise.'

He reached into his pocket and grabbed two paperclips, passing them to Dawn, and crouched down by the girl with the sharpened spoon, keeping his movements slow and non-threatening, before gesturing to the shackle around her left ankle.

'Can I?'

He waited for her to nod before getting to work picking the lock with the paperclips he'd turned into lockpicks earlier, as Dawn repeated the process with the next girl on the other side of the shipping container.

Mac really still kind of wanted to throw up. He also would not be averse to handing out knuckle sandwiches to the syndicate members with Jack right now, and really, really wanted to throw the syndicate's leaders into a concrete box for a very long time.

However, he cajoled a little smile onto his face, sought out that light in the darkness that'd gotten him and his family through so much, hoping it'd be a comfort to the girls.

'I really like your spoon…'

* * *

 **SYNDICATE HQ**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Riley watched with grim satisfaction as Gonzales' team brought the syndicate members out. Gonzales himself was dragging a silver-haired man dressed in an extremely expensive suit who had something very cruel and arrogant in his eyes none-too-gently.

As they came closer, Riley realized he was wearing a tie pin with an eagle and a lightning bolt on it.

Her eyes grew colder, fuller of fury, as she made eye contact with the man, tilting her chin up and crossing her arms.

This was Jupiter, the syndicate's leader.

She took comfort (cold comfort, but comfort nonetheless) in the fact that Matty would ensure that he got what he deserved.

* * *

 **THE OTHER WAREHOUSE**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Mac, Jack and Dawn watched as the last of the girls was loaded into an ambulance by EMTs, wrapped in a shock blanket and sipping a bottle of water, as local FBI loaded cuffed syndicate members, their (many) wounds dressed, into their squad cars.

Dawn turned to the two Phoenix agents, something very honest and heartfelt in her eyes.

'Thank you.'

Mac and Jack glanced at each other, then at her.

'No need to thank us.'

'Not for this.'

* * *

As Jack drove them back to the Phoenix, Mac stared out the window, re-shaping a paperclip without really looking at it.

It rapidly took the shape of a sharpened spoon.

 _Maybe I'm an optimist. Maybe I'm an idealist._

 _Honestly, I probably am._

 _But I firmly believe that we are all stronger, more capable, braver and more resilient than we think we are._

 _It's not going to be easy for those girls._

 _But I firmly believe that they'll put themselves back together again, that they're going to be a lot more than okay one day._

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

As Gonzales frog-marched him towards the interrogation rooms, Matty made eye contact with Jupiter, face breaking into a smile that absolutely didn't reach her eyes.

She was looking forward to breaking him in interrogation later.

But first, she'd leave him to stew and soften up a bit first.

She headed for the elevator.

* * *

Matty walked into the war room to find Riley, Bozer, Mac and Jack waiting for her.

She put her hands on her hips and addressed her employees.

'Where's Dawn?'

'Little girls' room…' Jack paled, as the realization dawned on them all. 'Oh, damn it!'

Matty raised an eyebrow at him.

'Well, what you are you and Baby Einstein doing sitting around?' She pointed at the door. 'Go!'

* * *

 **JACK'S CAR**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

 **(AND STUCK IN TRAFFIC)**

 **(MAC'S GOOD. REALLY GOOD. HE'S NOT MAGIC.)**

* * *

'…Well, what were we supposed to do? Go to the bathroom with her?'

Jack gesticulated rather wildly as they waited for the lights to change.

'Well, you _could_ have not told her how I took out the Phoenix's security system with a gum wrapper once…'

Jack shot his partner a look. Mac just raised his hands innocently, the expression on his face clearly saying _hey, just pointing out the facts._

'It was a funny story! And that was back when I thought she'd really turned over a new leaf and changed her spots!'

Riley's voice echoed out from Mac's phone, which was resting on his lap.

'Mac, Jack, I've got her at CHMC-LA.'

They exchanged a glance.

That was the hospital the rescued girls had been taken to.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Bozer, Riley and Matty watched the screen as the only footage of Dawn Riley had been able to track down since she'd left the Phoenix played.

As six of the rescued girls, looking more alive, lighter, happier, than they appeared to have in months walked out of the hospital in front of her, the conwoman looked up, straight at the camera, smiled and waved.

* * *

 **CAR PARK**

 **CHMC-LA**

 **LA**

* * *

There was no sign of Dawn at the hospital. There was also no sign of six of the girls. The other five refused to say a word and claimed they had no idea where they'd gone.

(Neither Mac nor Jack believed them, but they also really didn't want to interrogate the girls, not after what they'd been through, not for this reason.)

(They didn't believe that Dawn was up to anything nefarious, after all. She cared about those girls just as much as they did, honestly, perhaps even more.)

(They'd be safe with her.)

(Staying on the right side of the law was another matter.)

They did, however, find the Phoenix vehicle that Dawn had stolen, parked without a scratch.

There was also a note on the dashboard, pinned under the windscreen wipers, in handwriting that was very familiar to Jack.

 **Yes, they're with me.**

 **They've got nowhere else to go. Nowhere where they want to go anyway.**

 **So we're going to look out for each other. Watch each other's backs. Be a family.**

 **I've never had one before, but I've seen a really good example.**

Jack sighed and shook his head, running a hand through his hair, the smile on his face wry and fond and exasperated and a little sad and wistful all at once.

He held the note out to Mac.

'Mama Leopard and her six cubs. They're gonna be trouble, aren't they?'

Mac nodded wryly and gave a half-shrug.

'At least they won't be the really bad kind of trouble.'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…Trail's cold, boss.'

'Riley?'

The hacker shook her head.

'Same here.'

Matty pursed her lips, but both Bozer and Riley noted that she didn't look quite as disappointed or angry as they'd thought she might have, once upon a time.

'Jack, Blondie, get back here.'

A slightly-mischievous smirk appearing on her face, which made Riley and Bozer exchange a glance, she pulled out her phone and sent a text.

* * *

'…Seriously, brother, how can you be good at everything except _charades_ and _driving_?'

Mac shrugged as he and Jack walked towards the war room.

'I was taught to drive by MIT engineering students.'

Jack snorted as they walked through the war room door, and then stopped in his tracks when he realized who was waiting for them there.

Matty, Riley, Bozer…and Beth, who was shooting him a very firm _look._

He rubbed the back of his neck.

'Oh, hey, Doc…'

He shot Matty a betrayed look (she was, of course, utterly unapologetic), then turned to the doctor, who was narrowing her eyes at him.

'We need to talk, Jack. Privately.'

He sighed and waved a hand.

'Eh, just say it now, Doc. Matty's worked it out already, and Mac and Boze and Ri will get it out of me later anyway.'

He sounded very resigned.

Beth's expression softened a touch, growing more sympathetic, and she tapped her tablet screen, and held up a page of blood test results to him.

'Your cholesterol levels are beginning to edge towards high territory. Now, this is quite normal for your age group and isn't something to be terribly concerned about, and you are far from needing medication, but in order to avoid future health complications and the need for said medication, I strongly recommend that you make some changes to your diet. It really boils down to eating more plants.' She tapped her tablet a couple more times, as Mac, Bozer and Riley exchanged a glance, suppressing smirks, because Jack really was getting old, wasn't he? 'I've just sent you some dietary recommendations, complete with peer-reviewed references.' She turned a little and narrowed her eyes at the three younger agents. 'I'm sure Bozer will be happy to teach you to cook more delicious plant-based foods, and Riley could write an excellent algorithm to evaluate the suitability of recipes you find online, and Mac can explain the literature to you if you wish.'

Bozer, Mac and Riley all nodded obediently, Mac and Bozer's expressions growing a touch sheepish, Riley completely unapologetic, as Jack smirked a little as the tables turned.

Meanwhile, Matty's expression grew into something halfway between an amused smile and a knowing smirk.

She'd totally called this _months_ ago.

* * *

 **MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

As Mac lit the fire-pit (supervised by Matty - last time, he'd tried to use some new fire-lighting thing he'd designed and nearly lost his eyebrows, so they weren't taking any chances) and Riley packed Mac's self-opening, walking Esky with beer from the fridge, Bozer (rather patiently, as per doctor's orders) taught Jack how to make an excellent chickpea curry.

(He'd finally sweet-talked Mrs Patel from four doors' down into giving him her recipe, by mowing her lawn for the tenth time and promising to feed his roommate – whom the elderly woman thought was far too thin – plenty of said curry.)

* * *

 _She always gives me boxes and boxes of food whenever I mow her lawn or weed her garden or fix her washing machine or her dishwasher or the backyard gate for her._

 _I mean, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, because Mrs Patel is an excellent cook…_

 _But the human stomach has an absolute maximum capacity of four litres._

* * *

 **CHEZ DALTON**

 **LA**

* * *

Jack, his stomach full of excellent vegetarian food, opened the door to his apartment, and immediately caught sight of the figure sitting at one of the bar stools, lit by the light of his own phone.

Clearly, Elwood was taking some lessons from last time.

Though, not all.

Jack threw his hands up in exasperation.

'Thought I told you to knock next time, man!'

Elwood shrugged.

'Diane's singing tonight, you're not there, so figured it was safe.' Jack continued to eyeball him, and Elwood held up his hands. 'A buddy of mine works security there, all on the up and up, promise.'

(Elwood's buddy – who was a crook turned straight, just like him – owed him a favour. Several favours, actually. Elwood had asked him to keep an eye on his ex-wife, make sure no one gave her trouble.)

(Still, he never actually went to the jazz club where Diane sang once a week himself.)

(He missed hearing her sing.)

(But he knew he wouldn't be welcome.)

(And the pain of regret and of guilt was a heavy burden.)

The two men stared at each other for a long moment, the silence stretching thin, before Jack broke it, crossing his arms, voice firm.

'We ain't looking for your blessing. You lost that right years ago.'

Elwood swallowed, something sad and guilty and regretful in his eyes, but nodded just the same.

'You always were the better man, Jack.' He paused, something wry yet, somehow, profoundly sadder, more regretful, in his eyes. 'And I learned the hard way, no-one can tell Diane what to do. She's always made her own choices. And she's usually right.'

Jack looked seriously at him for a moment, nodded in acknowledgement, before something wry and teasing appeared on his face, and he pointed at Elwood sagely.

'Oh, that's why marriage didn't work out for you, brother. Rule number one: she's _always_ right.'

Elwood gave a sardonic chuckle, shaking his head, and Jack headed over to the fridge and pulled out two bottles of iced tea. He tossed one to Elwood, who opened it and raised it in a toast.

'I'll drink to that.'

* * *

AN: Hope you guys thought I did alright with Dawn – I find her to be an interesting and fun (exciting!) character to have around, even though I firmly think she's trouble and no good for Jack. I interpret her as a thief, a con-woman and a liar who will never, ever change, but is far from being evil and even not really bad (an honourable thief-type character, if that makes sense?) She has a very strong sense of morality (but pretty much no respect for the law), and plays for her own team, but will play for the good guys for the right cause (the ones that really matter), and would never, ever play for the really bad guys (Murdoc, The Organization etc.). So, in this universe, Dawn and her little band of 'adoptees' will become a family, being a reasonably minor thorn in the side of law enforcement, pulling a lot of Robin Hood-type crimes and helping out others who were in their situation. I also hope that you guys like what I did with the Jack/Diane/Elwood situation – I do find it a little hard to deal with the fact that Jack and Elwood are kind of friends, but at the same time, I do kinda see why it'd happen; this was my attempt to sort of delve into it and explain it in a way that makes sense to me! And Jack's cholesterol levels are going to becoming another running joke with me, I just know it…

I've had a very, very tough week (growing bacteria is terrible – I woke up at 4:50 in the morning to get into the lab at 6 am, spent all day on my feet taking measurements and they refused to grow for me), but I guess things can only really go one way from here, right? Anyway, here's hoping for Take 2, on Monday, going well!

There's no _Detours_ chapter to go with this episode, but here's the preview for the next one, which I really am hoping to get up next week (giving myself most of the weekend off from science, so will have plenty of time to write):

3.07, One to Two. When Jack is injured, he's forced to stay behind in the infirmary while Mac heads out on a mission with fellow Phoenix agent and badass science nerd Alex Lucas, causing him to fear that it's the beginning of the end of their bromance.

(Or, it's my fic and I'll make meta jokes if I want. :P)


	7. One to Two

AN: What? Two episodes in two weeks? What possessed me, you ask?

Well, I answer, the desire to escape my not-going well science.

(I was trying to let my science breathe, as Mac used to say during his MIT days…when he wanted to spend more time with Frankie. Instead of someone gorgeous, smarter than me and way out of my league, I've got this fic and you guys! :P)

* * *

 **POWER STATION**

 **LA**

* * *

'Welcome to the party, pal! Have a knuckle sandwich!' There was a meaty _thwack,_ a loud grunt of pain, and then the thump of someone falling to the floor. 'Oh, you want one too? No need to worry, man, got plenty to go around…'

Jack felled another one of the bad guys he was holding off, as Mac examined the device in front of him, which was tied in to LA's power grid and capable of knocking the whole thing out when it went off, which was in fifty-four seconds. Blocking out the sounds of Jack fighting (which, because it was _Jack,_ were very loud and full of Bruce Willis-inspired quips), he focused, tracing the wires, carefully considering.

Mac registered the sound of a gunshot ten feet away from him, accompanied by Jack shouting at the guy he'd just shot who assumedly had been about to shoot him or pounce on him.

(He trusted Jack to watch his back. Trusted him absolutely.)

'Hey, you just can't walk up and attack a guy, you have to say something cool first!'

He found the right wire, and cut it with his Swiss Army knife, letting out a sigh of relief as the lights blinked, then went out, along with the timer, with ten seconds left on the clock.

His eyes were caught on the battery that powered the disabled device (ironically) and the cut wire, and an idea blossomed in his brain, as they so often did.

(Pretty much constantly did, actually.)

Mac grabbed the battery and cut a couple more wires, glancing quickly over at Jack, who'd just taken down yet another bad guy with a loud cry.

'Yippee kay yay!'

* * *

Thirty seconds later, Mac's DIY Taser-disc was done, and he ducked out from behind cover and tossed it at the very last bad guy whom Jack was locked in combat with…at the very second that the man (who seemed more skilled than his colleagues) stabbed Jack in the leg, causing him to arch in pain and cry out.

'Jack!' As the bad guy dropped to his knees, convulsing, dropping the bloody switchblade he had been clutching in his right hand, Mac rushed over to his partner, pulling out his phone as he ran and speed-dialling Riley. 'We need ex-fil, stat.' He crouched by the older man, whose face was still contorted in pain as he put pressure on the wound. After a moment of staring at the wound, Mac pulled out his belt to turn into a tourniquet. 'Jack's been stabbed, he's going to be okay, but we need to get back to the infirmary ASAP…'

He focused on field-dressing Jack's injury, pushing aside the guilt gnawing at him.

He'd deal with that later.

* * *

 **INFIRMARY**

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Mac rested his elbows on his knees, tapping his right foot on the infirmary floor, sitting outside Jack's 'room'.

He absent-mindedly reached out and picked up yet another paperclip from the kidney dish full of them next to him, just as Beth stepped out of Jack's room.

'You can come in now, Mac, there's no longer a risk of seeing more of him than you'd like.'

She had one of those finding-light-in-the-darkness smiles on her face, somehow wry and soft and sympathetic, and he smiled back at her.

'Thanks, Beth.' His expression grew more wry. 'Hope they're giving you hazard pay for having to see his butt.'

She shook her head, that little smile still on her face.

'I have seen a lot of backsides. There's nothing traumatizing about anyone's.' She gestured with her head towards the dish of paperclips beside him. 'Let me know if you'd like more.'

He smiled a little wider and nodded gratefully, and she walked off towards her office, updating Jack's records on her tablet as she went, as Mac ducked behind the curtain into his partner's room, just as Riley (who'd stopped by briefly to see Jack earlier, but had had to go help Matty wrap up the mission) and Bozer approached the infirmary doors.

* * *

When Mac stepped inside, Jack was holding up a corner of his hospital gown and making a face.

'Seriously, this ain't doing anything for me. The cut, the colour…' He pointed at his partner. 'I get why you hate these things, man.'

Mac rolled his eyes.

'Yeah, the unflattering nature of hospital gowns is _not_ why I dislike them, Jack.' He sat down on the chair next to the bed. 'But look on the bright side; at least you're not bleeding everywhere anymore.'

A note of guilt bled into his voice, which Jack noted, his expression softening a little, before he nodded sagely.

'Yeah, I like my blood on the inside, thanks.'

Mac gave a weak chuckle that sounded rather forced, then met Jack's eyes, held his gaze for a moment.

'I'm so sorry, Jack. I should have-'

Jack held up a hand and cut him off, loudly.

'Woah, woah, hold it there, brother. This…' He gestured to his cleaned, stitched and bandaged wound, looking very firmly at the younger man. '…this ain't your fault. Hazard of the job.'

After a moment and a sigh, Mac nodded, just as Bozer and Riley stuck their heads around the curtain.

Bozer gestured to the bag of O-negative that was being pumped into Jack, then grinned and pointed at him.

'Once you get out of here, I'm gonna make you a nice, juicy steak.' He gave a little smirk. 'Even Dr Beth's gotta approve!'

Riley grabbed another chair, pulled it up to the side of Jack's bed, and sat down.

'Isn't there more iron in spinach?'

The paperclip in Mac's hands started to take the shape of a heme molecule.

'Yes, marginally, but the iron in meat is in a more bioavailable form, so red meat is a better iron source…'

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Mac and Riley's phones beeped, and they pulled them out and glanced at the caller ID.

'Matty?'

The two of them nodded in response to Jack's question, as they made to get up, with slight hesitation, both glancing at the older man, who grinned, something very soft and fond in his eyes, then pointed at the door.

'You two better not keep Matty the Hun waiting. I'll be waiting right here for you when you get back.'

Bozer, too, smiled at Riley and his BFF, reaching out to clap Jack on the shoulder.

'I'll keep the old man company.'

' _I'm not old!'_

Completely in sync, Mac, Riley and Bozer smirked, exchanged a glance and retorted.

'Yes you are!'

* * *

When Mac and Riley entered the war room, it was already occupied by a blonde, blue-eyed man of about thirty, wearing jeans, a tight-fitting white T-shirt and a black leather jacket, lounging in one of the armchairs with his feet up on the coffee table, solving a seven-by-seven Rubik's cube with ease.

They exchanged a glance.

(They recognized him, of course. Agent Alex Lucas, former Air Force fighter pilot and CalTech graduate, was normally one of the five members of the Edwards team – led by Nick Edwards, who loved weird combinations of things on toast, like Jack – who were often tapped for long-term undercover work– by Phoenix standards; their missions were usually quick, due to some imminent deadline, often literally.)

(Currently, the rest of the Edwards team – Nick, the leader, Rowena Ho, his second-in-command, former Special Forces sniper, tiny and utterly terrifying, May Torres, undercover expert, master of disguise, rumoured to have graduated from Julliard, and Carter Justin, lifelong white-hat, formerly of the FBI - were on an op in Russia, but Alex had been injured and his cover rumbled two weeks ago, so he had been sent back to LA.)

(Clearly he was now recovered, albeit at loose ends.)

It looked like Mac was getting a temporary partner.

As the two blondes exchanged greetings, Alex (who was clearly well aware of Mac's reputation) tossed the younger man the Rubik's cube, and Mac plopped himself down in the other armchair, also propping his feet up on the coffee table. As he began to solve the cube with ease, Riley shook her head and gave a wry smirk.

Jack was really going to go to town on this.

She could already hear him.

He was _such_ a drama queen.

* * *

'…Sixteen hours ago, the star witness in the DEA's case against the leadership of the La Plata cartel disappeared right under their noses.' Matty tapped the screen, and a picture of a man with dark hair, aged about thirty-five, appeared on the screen. 'Their case hinges on Martijn de Bruen's testimony. Without it, the cartel's five key lieutenants walk.' She pursed her lips. 'Unfortunately, the DEA have no idea whether Martijn was kidnapped or he ran away of his own free will.' Testifying against a drug cartel could be deadly. It wasn't unlikely that Martijn had decided he couldn't do it. 'And that's where we come in.' Matty turned back to face Alex (who was still solving his Rubik's cube without looking), Mac (who was shaping a paperclip into a Rubik's cube without looking) and Riley (who gestured subtly at the two blondes, raising an eyebrow at Matty). 'Riley, you're going to go digging through cyberspace for everything the DEA missed. Mac, Alex, you're going to either rescue Martijn or find him and talk him into testifying.'

The two of them combined were five IQ points smarter than two Einsteins.

Mac had a weird knack for inspiring speeches. Alex was ludicrously charming.

Matty was sure that between the two of them, they'd get Martijn back on the witness stand, one way or the other.

* * *

As Alex and Mac drove down to San Diego (Alex was driving, as per Matty's orders), Riley set up shop in the war room, filling in the gaps that the DEA's intel was, honestly, full of.

Apparently, they were very thorough when it came to their paperwork, but not really so when it came to digging through the dark web.

* * *

 **MARTIJN'S RESIDENCE**

 **(WELL, THE WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM HOUSE HE WAS LIVING IN ANYWAY)**

 **(IT DOESN'T REALLY SEEM LIKE HOME)**

 **SAN DIEGO**

* * *

Mac and Alex didn't find anything suspicious at Martijn's house.

There were no signs of breaking-and-entering, no signs of violence, and no signs of hurried vacating of the premises by the man either.

Then again, the La Plata cartel weren't exactly amateurs, and Martijn himself hadn't exactly lived his whole life on the right side of the law (which was how he'd wound up being the key witness in the first place).

They did, however, find a half-consumed packet of cold-and-flu medication, several empty cans that'd once held chicken soup, an empty tissue box, one more near-empty one and a huge number of tissues in the trash, as well as two bottles of nasal decongestant spray.

As Mac examined the trash while Alex searched for any hidden compartments and the like by tapping on the wall and all the furniture, the former's phone rang, and he quickly stripped off the disposable gloves he was wearing and picked up.

'Hey, Riley. I'm putting you on speaker.'

'La Plata were definitely planning to kidnap Martijn. I'm putting together a timeline, but there's no chatter on whether they've succeeded or not, they've gone dark.'

Which meant that it was still entirely possible that Martjin had run away himself. (The DEA agents who'd been in charge of his case had said that it seemed like he was having doubts.) Or, perhaps, he'd run away and _then_ gotten himself kidnapped.

Mac and Alex exchanged a glance, Mac speaking.

'We'll work out when Martijn left here and call you back, Riley.'

The hacker had worked with Mac for long enough to know _that_ tone of voice.

Mac didn't have any idea how he was going to work that out yet, but he was going to do it.

Somehow.

She hung up, and there was silence in the room for two seconds, as Mac and Alex surveyed the room, brains ticking into overdrive, startlingly-similar thinking faces on.

Then, Mac reached out and picked up a used tissue with the tweezers of his Swiss Army knife, just as Alex glanced over at the mound of probably-biohazardous paper. He clearly knew exactly what Mac was thinking of, because he gestured at the tissue mountain.

'If it was solely viral, we're in trouble.'

Gingerly, keeping the tissue at arm's length, Mac pried it apart to reveal a very unpleasant yellow-green lump.

'I'm pretty sure he had a nasty case of sinusitis, so there's at least _some_ bacteria in there.'

Alex let out a low whistle, even as he nodded in agreement.

'I'm voting for kidnapping; no-one's gonna try and leave the house of their own free will while sneezing out _that.'_ He pulled out his phone, and started searching something up. 'You handle supplies, I'll get us some equipment?'

Mac smiled and jumped up, bagging a selection of tissues from various depths in the trashcan in carefully-labelled plastic sandwich bags, before grabbing a box of unflavoured Jell-O from the pantry, as well as a bag of sugar.

He _did_ miss Jack's complaining and rambling, pointless stories (they really _did_ help him think, and they were oddly soothing, like white noise), but he admitted it _was_ nice to work with someone who spoke his language.

* * *

 **A LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL**

 **SAN DIEGO**

 **(YES, THEY ARE ABOUT TO WHAT YOU THINK THEY'RE GONNA DO)**

* * *

'…You guys want me to loop the cameras at a random high school for the reason I'm thinking of, don't you?'

Riley's voice was exasperated, almost long-suffering, though Mac could definitely hear a note of fondness in there too. A sheepish little smirk grew on his face.

(They could disrupt the cameras by modifying the cable-receiving dish on the front lawn of a house four doors down from the school, but it was easier and less suspicious to have Riley loop the cameras.)

(Besides, Mac would feel kind of bad for stealing someone's cable dish again.)

(The guy he'd 'borrowed' one from last time had _not_ been happy at having his game disrupted)

'Uh…yeah.'

Alex's smirk, on the other hand, was unapologetic, even smug.

'Well, I've always been a bit of a bad boy, Miss Davis.'

Mac could hear Riley's eye-roll at the light, meaningless flirtation in his words when she responded teasingly.

'Don't get caught, you two. Matty won't be happy if she has to bail you out for this.'

'I'm always careful.' Mac's smirk widened a bit when he said that. Riley snorted. She supposed in Mac's mind, he might be being careful (with his mind, he could calculate risks and choose the least-risky option nearly-instantly, after all), but it certainly didn't look that way from the outside. 'Thanks, Riles.'

Alex finished solving his Rubik's cube yet again, and tossed the puzzle into his other hand, before pocketing it, leaning against the fence.

'Last time I was caught breaking into a school, I was eleven. Statistically, it's not gonna happen.' They ended the call, then the two blonde agents glanced at each other, before looking through the wire fence at the school buildings…and at the tall, three-storey-high tree that grew right beside the science wing. 'This really takes me back to my junior high days.'

Alex grinned in a way that was almost a smirk as he shook his head and spoke. Mac, too, repeated the action, without even having to look at his temporary partner.

'Oh, yeah…'

Then, without another word, they scaled the fence and headed for the tree.

* * *

Balancing on a sturdy tree branch, Mac managed to work the window open and slid his hand through to open it as far as it would go from the inside.

Carefully, he pocketed his Swiss Army knife again, and slipped inside the window, followed by Alex.

The two of them took a second to glance around the high school science lab (which looked oddly similar to Mr Ericson's classroom back in Mission City, but Mac supposed there was a degree of universality to school science classrooms), allowing themselves a moment of fond reminiscence, before heading over to the nearest bench.

As Alex unpacked their supplies, putting the bag of sugar, the Jell-O and the labelled bags of tissues onto the bench, Mac grabbed a lighter from a drawer and lit the Bunsen burner, before rummaging around the cupboards for some petri dishes.

* * *

'…If we take our limiting generation times to be thirty minutes and one hour…'

Thinking out-loud, Mac finished writing out the last of the rather complicated mathematical model he and Alex had come up with in order to back-calculate exactly when Martijn had left his house. Alex took a step back, ran his eyes over the maths for a moment, then nodded in agreement. He reached out with his whiteboard marker and tapped a section of the equation.

'I haven't seen this before.'

Mac, who was now checking on the bacteria they were culturing in a makeshift incubator (they were growing, though more slowly than he would have liked, given the fact that they were on a deadline – but he couldn't do a thing about it, they'd grow when they were ready and no faster), glanced very quickly over at the section Alex was pointing at, then turned back to the bacteria and explained.

'It's from a paper that Jill Morgan and Ritchie co-authored, it's been accepted but it's not published yet. Uh, Jill's the-'

For some reason, not many people at the Phoenix seemed to remember her name, or notice her. Mac supposed it was because she was usually in the labs, and she'd been very shy at first, kind of still was with people she didn't know that well.

'The really cute blonde forensic tech with awesome glasses.' Mac started a little in surprise, glancing over at Alex. 'It'll be in the Journal of Forensic Sciences?' Mac just nodded, raising an eyebrow. Alex shrugged, seemingly nonchalantly. A little _too_ nonchalantly. 'It's a substantial development in the field…and I may or may not have seen her reading it in the break room last week.'

 _Interesting,_ a voice in Mac's head said. _Very, very interesting._

(It was, incidentally, the same voice that'd pointed out the way Billy and Riley had been looking at each other that time in Atlanta.)

(It was, to be honest, not a very active voice in Mac's mind.)

(He wasn't very good at this sort of thing.)

(He had no idea how he'd noticed Billy and Riley's significant glances when Jack hadn't.)

(Perhaps it was because Jack had a bit of a blind-spot regarding his surrogate daughter – whom he was very protective of – and potential boyfriends.)

If it was him or Jack, this would be grounds for teasing and getting up into each other's business.

But, as much as he liked Alex, he wasn't Jack. He wasn't Mac's actual partner.

It wouldn't be quite the same.

So, he just let it slide, gestured to the bacterial cultures.

'We're starting to see growth…'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'You're not allowed to die, Dalton, you still owe me a cheese Danish!'

'That was, like, fifteen years ago, Matty! And it was a cheese Danish! A _cheese Danish!_ '

Bozer, who was sitting by Jack's bedside, as promised, going over financials that Riley had sent him, trying to get a lead for Mac and Alex on Martijn's location, swivelled his head from Matty to Jack and back again as they bickered (that is, Matty expressed her concern and affection for Jack, and Jack expressed his thanks for said concern and affection and his returned affection), like a spectator at a tennis match.

His whole adopted family was crazy. Nuts. Round the twist. Completely bonkers.

But they were _his_ bonkers surrogate family.

* * *

'...Oh, you know you love me, Matty, everyone's family at the Phoenix!'

As Matty left Jack's room, rolling her eyes with a soft, fond smile on her face (not that Jack saw, since she had her back to him), Beth stepped into the room to check on her patient.

She _definitely_ saw the look on Matty's face.

And Matty definitely saw that Jack's words (and her expression) had struck a chord of sorts with the young doctor, triggered something in her brain, gotten the cogs turning in her mind.

Her smile shifted a little more as she walked towards the elevator to check in with Riley, becoming more knowing, more certain, as well as a tiny bit sad, but still with plenty of that softness in it.

* * *

Beth kept her focus and her professionalism throughout Jack's check-up (there were no signs of infection and his blood pressure was normal, and he seemed to be in pretty good spirits, even if he was grousing about how long it was taking Mac to finish his mission and come back to his real partner), but after she was done and had updated his medical records, and had sat down in her little office for a scheduled break, Jack's earlier words to Matty left the little corner of her mind she'd stowed them in while she'd worked and instead danced across her thoughts.

' _Everyone's family at the Phoenix!'_

That seemed to be true, from what she'd seen.

The Phoenix's infirmary was the most unusual 'hospital' she'd ever seen, in just about every way.

She understood the closeness between the medical staff, she'd seen that during her residency and her time in Syria. Long hours, weird hours, high pressure, high stress, plus common interests and goals and priorities meant that medical professionals naturally grew close, and when she'd been in Syria, what they'd seen, what they'd experienced, had brought her even closer to her MSF colleagues than usual.

But what she'd found both interesting, as well as hard to deal with, to get used to, was how _close_ the Phoenix's medical staff were to the other employees, their _patients._ She had spent the last eight years of her life having it drilled into her that maintaining the proper distance from her patients was essential. When she'd taken her Oath, she'd sworn to herself to uphold the high ethical code of her profession. She'd understood that it'd be a little different when she'd started at the Phoenix; after all, unlike in an ER, she'd be seeing the same patients, the same people, day in, day out. It was only natural to get closer, to build a rapport and a relationship, and besides, _I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug._ And the Phoenix was a very casual working environment.

(With the hours they worked, the secrets they kept, the pressure they were under, it was probably necessary or they'd all go mad.)

But even so…for example, Max, one of their surgical nurses (who also doubled as a normal nurse), was dating Agent Cheng, and no-one seemed to think that was inappropriate or crossing a line.

(Honestly, even if she wouldn't say anything, _she_ thought it was.)

Teasing and joking with your patients was fine, even _encouraged,_ given what they saw and went through regularly. Anything that could bring a little light into their lives would only improve their well-being, and as a doctor, that was her primary goal.

Friendship, she'd realized, was also acceptable, if only because it was impossible to avoid.

But _dating_? Or becoming incredibly close friends, _family_?

Surely _that_ was crossing the line.

(Absolutely everyone who worked for the Phoenix was good at compartmentalizing, had been proven to be. Beth was pretty confident in her ability to compartmentalize, her time in Syria had proven that to herself, as had her first few months at the Phoenix, even. She was, by her own judgement, probably a little too attached to her patients, but when she stepped back and assessed as objectively as she could, she felt that it hadn't affected her work at all. In some ways, that closeness seemed to be having a _positive_ impact; it certainly let her improve their morale in ways that wouldn't be possible without knowing them reasonably well. And none of the more senior, experienced medical staff had told her off or raised any concerns; if anything, it was the opposite.)

(Still, she couldn't quite shake the feeling that years of training had instilled in her that she was toeing, maybe crossing, a line.)

Beth gave a sigh, then took a deep breath and refocused, deliberately trying to relax her mind, before heading towards the little kitchenette they had off the infirmary to heat up her packed dinner.

* * *

 **LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL**

 **SAN DIEGO**

* * *

'…Riley, he left the house between twenty and twenty-two hours ago.'

'That fits with the timeline on the potential kidnapping, and it narrows down my search parameters…' Riley's fingers clacked on her keyboard for a moment, before her voice rang out again over Mac's phone. 'Got it! I've got him in a black SUV, heading north on the I5 six hours ago…and he does _not_ look happy to be there.'

Mac and Alex exchanged a glance. It turned out that Martijn _had_ been kidnapped after all. Alex spoke into Mac's phone.

'Can you track the vehicle?'

Mac hid a little smirk, as Riley replied, a bit of a smirk and plenty of sass in her voice.

'Already two steps ahead of you. I've found it, it's been dumped half a mile off the I5, texting you two the coordinates now…'

* * *

 **HALF A MILE OFF THE I5**

 **SOMEWHERE NEAR SAN DIEGO**

* * *

Mac and Alex got out of their car, and stared for just a second at the burned-out wreck in front of them.

Heat was still coming off it in waves.

The two blonde agents glanced at each other, then both turned to their car, before glancing at each other again.

'If we increase the air-flow…'

'By jury-rigging the exhaust?'

Alex nodded, a touch of a smirk growing on his face.

'Great minds think alike.'

'We _do_ still have that hose we borrowed from the house. And the duct tape.'

They'd taken the garden hose from Martijn's temporary home. It'd been the closest thing to a rope they could find, and they'd figured that they might have need of it to break into the high school.

(They hadn't counted on the conveniently-placed tree.)

(The duct tape was mostly because they'd figured that Martijn wasn't going to miss it…and besides, as Mac had said, duct tape always came in handy.)

Alex grabbed the hose and the roll of duct tape, while Mac dropped to the ground and slid under their car. Alex started attaching the hose to the exhaust, as clanking and clanging sounds (music to his ears) started sounding out from under the car.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Mac and Alex were searching the cooled-down, burned-out car for evidence.

Alex held up a small piece of paper into the light, squinting at it for a moment.

'A receipt for a very expensive tux…'

Mac picked up a larger, thicker piece of paper with the tweezers from his Swiss Army knife, examining the faded markings on it with the magnifying glass.

'…a print-out of the Wiki-How page for tying a bow tie.' His face screwed up a little in confusion. 'Who _prints_ stuff like this out anymore?'

Alex prised open the glove box, and pulled out a relatively-undamaged sheet of paper.

'And an invoice for a fancy catering company. The event's dated for tonight.'

Mac grabbed his phone off the charred front passenger seat, and snapped a picture of the invoice and sent it to Riley, who was on speaker.

'Riley…?'

Her nails clacked on her keyboard for a minute, as Mac and Alex kept searching, before she spoke.

'Company's legit…but two of their employees aren't.'

'Let me guess.'

'They're doing a black-tie event tonight.'

'One of the most exclusive social events of the season, hosted in a Malibu mansion owned by a guy whose tax returns don't _quite_ explain his riches.'

Mac and Alex looked over each other. Both of them had ample grease under their nails. Mac's hair was a little rumpled, and he had a streak of soot on his cheek. Alex had soot in his hair, though he'd avoided grease stains, including on his still-pristine white shirt (Mac had no idea how he did that – he avoided wearing white shirts because he tended to get grease or whatnot on them, and while his modified laundry powder could get rid of just about anything and everything – at least the second incarnation could; the first had turned a whole load of Bozer's laundry pink – it was just annoying).

Mac raised a shoulder, a slightly-sheepish expression on his face, while Alex gave a little smirk and straightened the cuff of his leather jacket like it was a fancy suit jacket.

'Looks like we need a wardrobe change.'

'And an identity change.'

There was a distinctly amused note in Riley's voice when she responded.

She knew how much Mac hated shopping for anything that wasn't some kind of appliance or part or chemical or doo-dad that no-one else recognized.

(Dragging him away from garage sales was hard. Dragging him away from an appliances shop having a massive clearance was harder.)

(It was like the proverbial kid in a candy store.)

She also knew how much more he hated makeovers.

(She and Bozer had offered, multiple times.)

(They'd been turned down, each and every time, as his wardrobe attested.)

'We'll handle the identities, but you're on your own for the wardrobes.'

There was no time for them to get back to the Phoenix and all the way to Malibu for the party.

Mac made a face, as Alex smirked, straightened his other cuff, and clapped the other blonde on the shoulder.

'Shopping it is.'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…And he's all young and got all his hair, and you know my hairline's not what it used to be!' Jack threw his hands up in a panic. 'I reckon this might be the end for us!'

Bozer, who had been, in his defence, listening to Jack rather tolerantly for the last twenty-five minutes as he ranted and raved about how Mac was going to trade him in for a younger model with a bigger brain, just raised a disbelieving eyebrow, then sighed internally (never mind giving _Beth_ hazard pay for having to see far more of Jack than any of them ever wanted to, _he_ deserved hazard pay for having to put up with this) and spoke comfortingly.

'Jack, Mac loves you. He loves you very much. He isn't going to leave you for Alex just because he has more hair, is more than a decade younger than you, can solve a Rubik's cube blindfolded and recite the Periodic Table or is more fashionable or because he's also blonde.'

Those were all reasons that Jack had given.

(Bozer was going to get Beth to check his medication when she came to check on him next. He highly doubted that she'd made a mistake, but this was a little nuts, even for Jack.)

Jack stared at Mac's BFF for a long moment.

He really, really liked Bozer.

(Of course he did. He was good people. Really good people.)

(Jack didn't know how many guys could have dealt with their best friend coming home from Afghanistan carrying the baggage that Mac had been carrying and with a new best friend in tow to boot the way Bozer had.)

(He'd stuffed both Mac and Jack with his excellent cooking, mother-henned the hell out of them – Mac especially – and welcomed Jack home with open arms and almost as enthusiastically as he'd welcomed home Mac. He'd quickly accepted the closeness, the bond, between Mac and Jack – forged in fire and danger and violence, out in the desert, different from the one that Mac and Bozer had, stronger, in some ways – without any signs of jealousy or bitterness and the three of them had quickly settled into a dynamic that _worked_.)

(In hindsight, Jack realized that that had been the only possible outcome. Bozer was well aware that his BFF had a heart bigger than his brain, and had plenty of love to go around, and Bozer's heart was just as big.)

He also admitted that he really admired Bozer.

(The younger man was so _secure_ in his status as Mac's BFF. It seemed that he'd always been.)

(Despite the fact that if you'd asked Jack when he'd met the barely-a-man he'd called Carl's Jr all those years ago what his best friend must be like, Jack would have described some kind of science nerd, someone just as – or almost as – smart as his partner who loved to build crazy things out of random doo-dads and had dreams about teaching unicorns about really hard maths and physics.)

(Like Frankie. Or Allie. Or perhaps Riley or Beth. Or Alex Lucas.)

(Maybe it was because they'd become friends so young, had so many shared experiences. Or because in high school and middle school, Mac and Bozer had had more in common than they seemed to, superficially, now.)

(Or maybe it was just Bozer. Or Mac-and-Bozer.)

Jack had plenty of self-esteem. He was a damned good shot and a damned good agent, a master tactician and a pretty damn good interrogator. He was a good person. He was really charming. And funny. And he knew _Die Hard_ inside out. And he was pretty confident that he was doing a decent job at being a pseudo-dad.

But he also knew that science was not his strong point, to say the least.

He didn't understand a fair few of the words that came out of his partner's mouth. He probably didn't understand 90% of what went whirring around his brain.

He knew that Mac had to go to significant extra effort to translate his thoughts, the multitude of brilliant, life-saving, on-the-spot ideas he came up with, into a language that Jack could understand.

Surely, sometimes, Mac wished he had a partner that he didn't have to translate for? One who spoke his language?

At that moment, Beth stepped through the curtains, checking the monitors by Jack's bed, before gesturing to his leg under the hospital gown and blankets. When Jack nodded (and Bozer looked away), she raised the blankets and his gown to check that there were no signs of infection. She nodded in satisfaction, making some notes on her tablet, as Jack started rambling again.

'I mean, I guess we got the _he's the brains, I'm the brawn_ , thing going on, but…'

Meanwhile, Bozer caught Beth's eye, and stage-whispered to her.

'Check his medication dose. _Please_.'

The _I love him, but can't take much more of this_ went unsaid.

Beth smiled rather wryly (Jack had been so loud, that she'd probably heard most of what he'd said), and checked his IV dutifully. She then glanced back at Bozer and shook her head.

There was nothing wrong with his medication.

Jack was just being extra _Jack._

'…Come on, Boze, tell me it ain't so! Tell me it ain't!'

Bozer glanced at Jack, then over at Beth again, something imploring in his eyes. He mouthed _help_ at her.

(She was a doctor. She couldn't ignore a plea for help!)

Beth blinked twice and seemed to think for a moment, before turning to Jack, her voice gentle and calm…though not without a note of wry amusement that she didn't seem able to fully conceal.

'You and Mac's partnership is legendary. I knew that, even before I'd met either of you.' She paused. 'Everyone says it's because you two are complimentary in so many ways, and because you care so much about each other…'

* * *

 **A MENSWEAR SHOP**

 **(A VERY EXPENSIVE MENSWEAR SHOP)**

 **(THEY** _ **DO**_ **HAVE TO LOOK THE PART)**

* * *

Mac and Alex (or, rather, John and Bobby Darling, brothers, successful young inventors – _very_ successful young inventors – and occasional venture capitalists), now free of all grease and soot, hair styled neatly and wearing very sharp tuxedos, strode out of the tuxedo shop.

Mac adjusted the left cuff of his shirt slightly, to make the paperclip he'd stowed there a tiny bit more accessible.

'Matty is _not_ going to like the bill on this one.' A sheepish half-smile, half-smirk appeared on his face. 'At least it's not as bad as Turkey.'

(The floor of a hizar and a Turkish dam had not been cheap.)

A very similar expression appeared on Alex's face.

'That was peanuts, compared to Budapest.'

* * *

 **THE SOCIAL EVENT OF THE SEASON**

 **MALIBU**

* * *

Alex and Mac, in a black Cadillac (they had to look the part, after all), drove up the long driveway of a very, very fancy and very, very expensive-looking mansion.

The beautifully-manicured gardens were exquisitely, tastefully decorated, and women in evening gowns and men in tuxedos were already climbing the steps, as valets took their cars away to be parked.

'Oh, Nick's gonna be pissed he missed this.'

'Jack is _not_ going to be happy that he missed this.'

They spoke in sync, and glanced over at one another, shaking their heads, little smiles on their faces. It was Alex who spoke first.

'Jack a James Bond fan too?'

(Nick certainly was.)

Mac nodded.

'John McClane is his all-time favourite, but James Bond is up there.'

They were now just behind the first car in the queue for the entry, and as they watched, a woman wearing very, very high and very, very pointy heels stepped out of the vehicle in front.

Alex's grin and voice took on a wry tone.

'May and Rowena will be happy they missed the stilettos though.'

Mac, who had once had to build a device to massage Riley's very sore feet for her, nodded in agreement, also with a wry smile on his face.

They pulled up at the entrance, and got out, straightening their tuxes. Alex dropped the keys into the hand of a valet, and they walked up the steps and into the mansion.

* * *

As the two of them strode through the doors and into the party, many eyes fell on them.

(The owners of the eyes were predominantly female.)

(Some had distinctly predatory looks in their eyes.)

(Mac's first instinct was to wonder if, perhaps, their covers had been rumbled, a thought which he quickly dismissed.)

(Alex's first instinct was to smirk. That was _not_ dismissed in the slightest.)

They exchanged a quick glance, wordlessly divvying up tasks (they both knew that they had to remain inconspicuous – that is, behave just like the other guests, gather as much intel as possible from talking to the guests, and keep their eyes and ears open), before Alex made eye contact with a young Hispanic woman in an eye-catching red dress, and deliberately straightened his tuxedo jacket, rolling his shoulders, and headed towards her.

'Let me show you how it's done, little brother…'

Mac rolled his eyes, shook his head (it was in-character), and headed towards the buffet of food laid out, walking a little more slowly, leisurely, all the better to eavesdrop.

* * *

Mac, a glass of champagne in hand, nodded and smiled in thanks at the waiter as he took a canape, using the action as an excuse to lean closer to the host, who was talking in rapid Spanish with several other men and one woman, a bit like a proud boss, boasting.

'… _business is excellent, despite the increase in regulation and enforcement, we still have plenty of customers, they cannot get enough of our product, after all!'_

It _could_ be an entirely innocuous conversation.

Then again, it might not be.

* * *

Alex smiled at the young woman in the red dress (her name was Julia), as she raised a finger to his lips in the corner of the ballroom.

'I know somewhere…more private we can go, Mr Darling. But you have to promise not to tell anyone…Mr Rodriguez would be most unhappy if he caught us.'

Rodriguez was the owner of the mansion, whose money, Riley was quite sure, came at least partly from the La Plata cartel.

He kissed the tip of her finger, smirk widening.

'My lips are sealed.'

She smiled seductively and took his hand, leading him through a doorway into a quieter room, then, after glancing surreptitiously around, opened a door on the other side of the room, and pulled him up the stairs on the other side.

* * *

Out of the corner of his eye, Mac watched Alex be led into a quieter room off the main party area by the woman in the red dress. His eye was caught not even a half-second later by a painting on the wall in the room.

It was an abstract piece, depicting some kind of symbol.

It also looked very, very familiar.

Where had he seen it before?

Finally, it hit him.

It was a tattoo that all members of the La Plata cartel had.

Photos had been in the briefing file given to them by the DEA.

Mario Rodriguez's money came at least partially from the La Plata cartel.

But why did he have a painting of their symbol?

Mac, under the guise of admiring the artwork that adorned the walls (there were many paintings in the room), walked over to the nearest piece, examined it for a while, then kept moving on until he reached the one he really wanted to take a good look at.

He didn't recognize the artist's signature, but it was dated 1962.

The painting came first, not the cartel.

And the painting was owned by Mario Rodriguez…

* * *

In a _very_ private room, which they'd had to move past sixteen security measures to enter, Alex smirked, reaching out and putting a finger on Julia's lips as she leaned a little closer to him. Instead, he leaned forward and kissed her cheek, then whispered into her ear, keeping his tone teasing, flirtatious.

'I never kiss a lady on the lips on a first date.'

His job meant he had to get up close and personal to suspects or (potential) victims or even those completely uninvolved from time to time, even if his team avoided it whenever practical. But he'd worked out little tricks to limit _how_ up close and personal he had to get, because honestly, it wouldn't sit well with him if he didn't.

She smirked right back at him, winding her arms around his neck.

'Even if the lady wishes it?'

He smirked right back, bending to whisper in her ear again.

'I can be persuaded.'

As she pressed up against him to press a kiss to his jaw, starting her _persuasion,_ Alex slipped a hand into his pocket, pressing the on/off button in a set pattern.

Three seconds later, his phone rang, causing Julia to pull away. He affected a hesitant look, an apologetic look, and pulled out his phone, deliberately letting her get a glimpse at the caller ID, which showed a very beautiful, ethnically-ambiguous woman.

(May, his teammate and the closest thing to a sister he'd ever had, not that Julia knew that.)

(Carter had custom-written the program for him, precisely for a situation like this.)

Julia pulled back further, raising an eyebrow, something fiery flashing in her eyes.

'Girlfriend?'

He hesitated.

'Fiancée.'

Julia glared daggers at him.

'You...I…I can't believe you!'

She slapped him, hard, then turned around and flounced off, fire in all her actions.

Alex rubbed his sore cheek (he – or rather, John Darling – totally deserved it), and started searching the room.

He'd just gotten into a locked drawer when Mac slipped into the room, caught his eye, and spoke.

'Mario Rodriguez doesn't just make _some_ of his money from the La Plata cartel…'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

In the infirmary, sitting by Jack's bed, laptop on one of those little hospital bedside tables, as he was going through the financials of one Mario Rodriguez (the hidden ones that the IRS had no clue about that Riley had dug out), Bozer spoke to Riley over his phone, eyes wide.

'…He makes _all_ of it from the cartel...'

* * *

In the war room, Riley turned to Matty, expression set.

'…He's El Jefe.'

Matty's expression, too, grew very grim.

She raised her phone and made a call.

It failed to connect.

She tried another number, glancing at Riley as she did so. The hacker, eyes concerned, immediately started typing frantically on her laptop.

Riley looked up grimly as Matty's call to Alex also failed to connect.

'They're in a signal-jammed area of the house.'

Matty turned to the live image of the still-buzzing party at Mario Rodriguez's mansion on the big screen.

'They're on their own.'

* * *

 **MARIO RODRIGUEZ'S MANSION**

 **MALIBU**

* * *

Mac tapped on the wood panelling on the wall with his fist periodically as he walked along the length of room, listening carefully to the resulting sound. Eventually, he found a panel where the noise was distinctly hollower, and took out his Swiss Army knife, pulling out the screwdriver, and inserting it into the gap between the panels.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, closer to the door, Alex searched through some previously-locked drawers, pocketing the hard drive he found.

Just as Mac finished prising open the panel, revealing a dark, low-ceilinged corridor, he heard a scream.

It was faint, but he definitely heard it.

He stilled, and turned to Alex.

'Did you hear that?'

The other man nodded, and as he did, another, ever-so-slightly louder scream echoed out.

It seemed to be emanating from further down the previously-hidden corridor.

Silently, after exchanging another glance, Mac and Alex headed towards the screams.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

In the lab, Jill carefully took swabs from the huge array of evidence retrieved from the house that Martijn had been living in (courtesy of the DEA), dissolving the trace evidence she collected in a suitable solvent in Eppendorf tubes, before taking small samples for the mass spec.

There was, in her opinion, never such thing as too much evidence.

* * *

Still sitting by Jack's side (and tuning out the very long story that he was telling, which involved fighting a tiger-bear and punching a shark – Beth was very kindly and very patiently half-listening, as far as Bozer could tell, as she sat on Jack's other side and filled out supply orders; she seemed to have realized that Jack needed to feel that he had some kind of audience, even if he knew that said audience wasn't paying much attention), Bozer burrowed deeper into Mario Rodriguez's financials.

He'd seen enough courtroom dramas to know that defence attorneys were really good at destroying witness credibility.

But financial records were a whole other story.

* * *

In the war room, Riley typed frantically, finding links between various aliases, then linking those aliases to real identities, building up a network, mapping the various members of the La Plata cartel's leadership, and their true identities.

The information that the DEA were relying primarily on Martijn's testimony for.

* * *

 **MARIO RODRIGUEZ'S MANSION**

 **MALIBU**

* * *

Mac and Alex came to a bend in the corridor, and carefully, after they shared a glance and a few hand gestures, Mac ducked his head out around the corner

There were two big, burly goons stationed outside of a door, behind which the screams were definitely coming from.

The two blonde agents exchanged a glance, both of them shrugging out of their tuxedo jackets and dropping them soundlessly to the floor.

'You go left, I go right?'

Alex smirked and nodded in agreement, rolling up his sleeves, and then, on a count of three, Mac pulled out his Swiss Army knife, turning on the flashlight, and pointed it across the corridor, drawing the guards' eyes.

'Did ya see that?'

The guard who hadn't spoken definitely did _not_ see or hear Alex coming, not until a second before he had Alex's bow tie wrenched tight around his neck, cutting off his airway.

The guard who'd spoken didn't get to see much more, because Mac's tuxedo jacket was soon flung over his head, his knees were kicked out from under him, and then, with a meaty _thwack,_ he fell limp in Mac's arms.

The door flung open, just as Alex finished grabbing one of the guard's Glocks and checking the magazine.

'What the-'

The cartel member didn't even get to finish his sentence, because he fell backwards, into one of his colleagues, as Mac thrust the unconscious guy he had in his arms at him.

Meanwhile, Alex shot a fourth guy, who was about ten feet away, deeper inside the room, in the shoulder, causing him to clutch the wound in pain and fall back onto the floor.

Then, he stepped forward and clocked the guy who'd been stumbled into by the guy that Mac had tossed the unconscious man at in the head with the butt of the gun, and the fourth cartel member (the one who was on the floor and struggling under the weight of his unconscious colleague) glanced from one Phoenix agent to the other, then put up his hands.

Alex grabbed the man's weapon, then cuffed his hands together with his belt, as Mac walked over to the wide-eyed, shell-shocked, roughed-up-and-bruised and still-very-congested (sinusitis was _awful_ ) Martijn, who was duct-taped to the chair in the middle of the room, crouched down beside him and waved a little awkwardly.

'Uh, hi. I'm MacGyver, that's Alex, and we're here to get you out of here on the behalf of the DEA.' As he spoke, Mac cut the duct tape with the scissors, and not even half a second after he'd finished, Martijn sneezed, the sound rather miserable. Mac just reached into his pocket and pulled out his handkerchief and handed it to the poor man, offering him a reassuring smile. 'You'll feel better after a course of mild antibiotics; it's not viral.'

Martijn stared at him, a very _what in the world_ expression on his face.

Alex chuckled and shook his head as he finished restraining the bad guys.

'We'll explain in the car, but the gist of it is that you should be very, very grateful to the little guys living in your nose.'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

In the Phoenix parking garage, after dropping poor Martijn off (at least the man would have less of a target on his back now, with the leadership of the cartel taken out and the evidence that they'd found at Rodriguez's, plus what Jill, Riley and Bozer had found) at a local hospital under DEA protection, Mac and Alex ran into a bulky brunette man with hair greying and receding at the temples (Nick Edwards), a tiny, serious-looking Asian woman of indeterminate age (Rowena Ho), an ethnically-ambiguous but very beautiful woman with a pixie cut of about thirty-five (May Torres) and an African-American man with a shaved head, wearing a T-shirt, skinny jeans and suspenders (Carter Justin). The four of them were getting out of a car, and all smiled and grinned as they laid eyes on Alex.

Nick held up his arms, the grin on his face very broad.

'Flyboy! You miss us?'

Alex snorted, a teasing spark in his eyes, as well as deep affection, love.

Mac smiled, walking away to give them a little more privacy.

Clearly, the Edwards team were family, just like his team was.

'I missed Rowena, Carter and May, but not you, old man.'

Nick put his hands on his hips, and Rowena gave a fond, amused little smile, as Carter and May pointed at Alex.

'Burn.'

'Of course you missed us, bro!'

Still looking put-out, Nick almost-pouted, and pointed at Alex.

'For that, you're buying tonight.'

Alex just put his hands up, as if to say, _okay, okay._

'7:30 PM, the usual place? Debriefs should be done by then.'

Nick, Rowena, May and Carter all nodded eagerly.

'It's a date, Flyboy.' Then, Nick glanced at the evidence bag that Alex held in his left hand (it contained the hard drive he'd found at Rodriguez's, plus several other choice pieces of evidence) and waggled his eyebrows, a smirk growing on his face. 'Making a _personal_ delivery to Lil' Miss Morgan?'

(Nick thought he was clever, using the nickname Jill had quickly been given when she'd joined the Phoenix in that pun. Carter, Alex, May – and Mac, but he wasn't a fan of puns in general – thought he clearly wasn't.)

(Rowena was simply indulgent.)

Alex shrugged in a way that was definitely deliberately (and falsely) nonchalant.

'She _is_ the best forensic analyst on the West Coast.'

Nick's smirk widened, and he waggled his eyebrows again, even as something soft, fond, happy for his younger teammate, hopeful for him, appeared in his eyes.

'Flyboy's thinking of giving up his playboy ways!'

(Alex had a bit of a reputation with women, Mac had heard. From Phoenix scuttlebutt, he was a charmer and a flirt who went on a _lot_ of dates, and never slept alone unless he was on a mission or wasn't in the mood. But, it was also said, he never made it seem like there was anything on offer except a night or two of fun. With respect, but no strings. No feelings.)

(It fit Mac's read of him, what his gut told him. Alex was a very good guy, he wouldn't deceive or lie to women for the sake of _company_.)

 _I admit that I'm probably a little bit old-fashioned when it comes to this sort of thing. I'm not exactly keen on flings or no-strings-attached._

 _Which, arguably, may not be a good thing, considering my line of work. Relationships are tough when you're a covert operative of the US government._

 _But people do call me a Boy Scout for a reason. And I was primarily raised by my grandfather, who taught me that a gentleman always picks up a lady at her front door for a date – never early, never late – with flowers, then walks her to her door at the end of the night and kisses her goodnight, but never, ever kisses a lady on the lips on the first date._

 _I do try to be a gentleman. Most of the time._

 _But as long as no-one's getting hurt, no-one's being lied to or deceived, I don't judge how other people choose to conduct their private lives._

Alex rolled his eyes and pointed at Nick with his free hand.

'Well, you should know all about how when a man starts getting a little older, he starts thinking about settling down…but then again, I suppose it was so long ago for you that you might have forgotten…'

* * *

In the elevator on their way up to the main entrance, both Mac and Alex slipped off their suit jackets, Mac draping his over his arm as he loosened his bow tie, Alex slinging his jacket over his shoulder instead as he rolled up his shirt-sleeves, before tucking a finger under the collar of the jacket and carrying it slung over his shoulder.

(Monkey suits were uncomfortable.)

The opening elevator doors revealed Beth (who immediately looked them up and down for any signs of injury) and Jill (who looked them up and down for different reasons, which Mac didn't notice, but Alex definitely did), about twenty feet down the hallway and clearly waiting for them.

(Jill had been ordered by Matty to retrieve the evidence herself, immediately. Beth had made a deal of sorts with Jack, so that he'd be a good – well, at least, better – patient.)

Mac smiled. Alex smirked and deliberately shifted his shoulders a bit (which he definitely noticed made Jill's eyes follow his movements). The two of them walked over to the two young women, and Alex held out the bag of evidence to the blonde analyst.

' _This_ is a welcome I could get used to.'

Jill took the evidence bag with an awful lot of excitement and happiness for what it was (but then again, she did get very excited about forensics).

Mac gestured to his suit jacket, a half-wry, half-sheepish look on his face.

'This is almost-certainly the warmest welcome we're going to get; Matty's not going to like the bill on these.'

'We could easily make it back just by making a wall calendar with photos of…' Jill blushed, as she realized that she'd said that out loud, and held up the bag of evidence. 'Umm…I, uh, have to get this back to the lab. Now. Right now. Uh, bye.'

She stood there awkwardly for a brief moment more, before making to scurry away, but not before Alex smirked a little wider and winked at her.

'I _have_ heard great things about your photography skills…'

Jill's cheeks flushed further at the definite note of _flirting_ in his voice, and stood there for a moment longer, as if she was trying to decide what to say, before deciding to say nothing at all and scurrying off.

Mac, Alex and Beth just watched her go for a moment, Alex with a smug smirk on his face but something decidedly softer in his eyes, while Mac had an eyebrow slightly raised (Jill used to be almost-painfully shy, the operative phrase being _used to be,_ or so he'd thought…), and Beth was a touch wide-eyed.

Then, they shook themselves out of it, and Beth turned to Mac.

'I regret to inform you that you owe Jack a six-pack of beer and a steak dinner from his favourite steakhouse…' Her voice shifted from mock-overly-serious to half-amused, half-curious. '…because, apparently, if you cooked it, you'd nuke it.' As Mac chuckled and shook his head fondly, Beth hesitated for a beat. 'I was also supposed to punch you, but…' She hesitated for a moment longer, as Mac laughed again, still shaking his head (Jack was never going to change, something that he was very glad for), then reached out slowly and punched him extremely lightly in the bicep (it was really more a tap than anything else). She looked instantly regretful, and pulled her hand back very quickly, and Mac just made himself laugh a little harder, if only to reassure her. (It hadn't hurt at all; if Jack was delivering him the owed punch, he'd have been hit far harder.) Beth fiddled with her hands, biting her lip. 'I'm sorry, I really did swear to him I would; we made a deal, he swore on his Shelby Cobra and the collected works of Bruce Willis on DVD…' Alex raised an eyebrow at that, and Mac just nodded as if to say, _yes, really._ '…that he'd go to all his PT with minimal protesting, complaining and grumbling, and according to his medical records, he has a nasty habit of skipping sessions, so…'

Mac's expression turned into a half-sheepish grin, and he rubbed the back of his neck.

'At least three of those instances _are_ my fault.' He smiled at her. 'I won't tell anyone if you don't, Beth, promise.'

Alex, who had a rather smug and knowing look on his face (Mac sighed internally – _everyone_ was making a mountain out of a – large – molehill), and held out a hand to Mac, who took it and clasped it for a moment, before the two blonde agents shared a hug that involved plenty of back-slapping, and then, Alex held out a hand for Mac's tuxedo jacket, which Mac handed over. The slightly taller agent then gestured with his thumb towards wardrobe.

'I'll go drop these off before debrief, so you can pay your partner a visit.'

(Given that Alex winked at him, Mac was 100% sure that that wasn't the older agent's only motivation.)

(Mountains out of substantially-sized molehills, indeed.)

Still, he turned to Beth, gesturing towards the infirmary.

'Can I?'

She nodded and smiled wryly.

'I think I'm going to have to insist, Mac, for the sake of patient welfare. He needs reassuring that your bromance break-up is not imminent, and I think that his incessant complaining and long-winded, seemingly-pointless anecdotes are having a negative impact on the welfare of our other patients.'

Mac smiled wryly and fondly as they walked through the Phoenix.

'Oh, if he's complaining and telling those stories that go nowhere, he's fine. Has he broken out the shark-punching metaphor yet?'

'Twice.' Beth's brow furrowed in confusion. 'What does it mean?'

Mac shrugged.

'I have absolutely no idea.'

Beth gave a little snort of laughter, then tilted her head a little to the left and glanced up and over at him.

'And exactly _what_ did you do to his steak?' She paused. ' _Please_ tell me you didn't really nuke it…though I _did_ see a documentary in which they exposed a steak to high levels of bacteria, then exposed it to radiation to disinfect it to try and see if it was safe to eat…'

That jogged something in his memory; he thought he'd seen something like that in science class in the 9th grade (which he admittedly hadn't paid the best attention too, Mr Rochester was nowhere near as much of an expert as Mr Ericson and Mac had known the whole curriculum inside out. Mr Rochester had never liked him, which he supposed was fair, because Mac _had_ corrected him in class twenty-nine times by Thanksgiving.)

They reached the elevator that led down to the infirmary, and stepped inside, as Mac told the story of how his and Jack's bromance had nearly ended prematurely due to irreconcilable differences regarding their steak preferences.

'No, I didn't nuke his steak. Years ago, I forgot to ask Jack how he liked his steak and cooked it to medium-rare using my steak-cooking algorithm. He likes it so blue it's practically raw, so naturally, he wasn't happy. Ever since, he's been very _Jack_ about it…'

* * *

They walked out of the elevator, Beth shaking her head and laughing, Mac with a half-rueful, half-smug grin on his face. His expression grew more serious as he glanced over at the doctor.

'Thanks for looking after him.'

Beth smiled.

'It _is_ literally my job description.'

'Doesn't mean you don't deserve thanks.'

She smiled and nodded gratefully, as they walked into the infirmary, and were greeted by Jack, as obnoxiously loud as ever.

'There you are, brother! I was beginning to think you'd gone and run off with this Alex Lucas and left poor old Jack broken-hearted in the dust!'

* * *

AN: Did you guys enjoy that? I know I split up Mac and Jack this time, but I'm pretty sure the bromance still comes through…and it was too much fun to resist! Alex Lucas and the rest of the Edwards team really are a giant meta joke, because my brain is weird. My characterization of Alex is based on the notion of 'what if Mac had a cooler, bad-boy older brother?' and fusing the character of Alex Summers from _X-Men: First Class_ with Mac! And before I forget - I've got to give helloyesimhere a shout-out for the cheese Danish headcanon!

I am completely, totally and utterly exhausted this week – I've had three 12-hour days, and one crazy 14 hour day (I was in the lab from 8:40 to 10:40 at night!), but my science is finally (sort-of) cooperating! (Seriously, Mac, in my honest opinion, isn't just damn good, he's also damn lucky!)

There is an episode tag for _Detours_ for this episode; it'll be up on Wednesday – here's the summary:

Hemoglobin, tag to 2.07, One to Two. Mac and Alex Lucas treat their teams, their boss and a certain forensic analyst and a certain doctor to a steak dinner. Teasing and knowing looks ensue. After all, what is family for?

(Team-as-Family fluff, with a side of romance and some character and relationship development. That's all it is!)

The next episode will hopefully be up next week; here's the press release:

3.08, Pumpkin to Pie. The Coltons show up in LA chasing the biggest bounty of their careers…who just so happens to be the team's target. Yet again. Jack, Bozer and Mac take the opportunity to have a chat with Billy, and the team channels Cage for Halloween.

A couple of hints/minor spoilers:

There will be two shovel talks. Who delivers them? :P And if this were a real episode, Isabel Lucas's name would appear in the opening credits.


	8. Pumpkin to Pie

**MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

'…It looks great, but not _quite_ as great as last year…'

On Mac's laptop screen, over Skype, Cage smiled a teasing little smile at Mac, Jack, Bozer and Riley, as they showed her the freshly-decorated house, adorned with rusty sheriff stars and (fake) cow skulls and cacti and even a large (fake) stuffed vulture.

(This year's Halloween theme had been declared to be 'Wild West ghosts with a _touch_ of steampunk' by Bozer.)

(Of course, they had to show Cage, given how passionate she was about Halloween.)

(And they _were_ doing this because they'd enjoyed last year – which _had_ been her idea – so much.)

(And they _did_ miss her, even if they kept in touch, thanks to the wonders of modern technology.)

(Cage was fully recovered now, but had chosen to stay in Australia, close to her sister.)

(Almost-dying _did_ tend to change one's priorities.)

(She was working for the Australian military now, in what she _claimed_ was a far more boring job than her previous work with the SASR's 4th Squadron.)

(None of them believed her – though not from what showed on her face or in her voice; Cage was _Cage_ , after all - but she'd never tell them otherwise.)

Bozer put up his hands.

'Hey, we're not trying to beat the Queen of Halloween…but we did a pretty awesome job! Am I right, people?'

Riley and Mac both glanced at Bozer, fond smiles on their faces as they shook their heads, then nodded in agreement as they turned back to Cage on the screen.

Meanwhile, Jack crossed his arms stubbornly.

'Still reckon we should've done what me and my cousin George did and borrowed a-'

' _No_ , Jack.'

'Grave robbery is a _crime_.'

'And you work for the _government_.'

Cage raised an amused eyebrow.

'Jack is never going to change.'

They could hear the affection in her voice, as well as a touch of sadness, though it was hard to tell, her being her.

The man in question grinned.

'Nope.'

He popped the p, almost obnoxiously, while Mac smirked mischievously.

'He's old and set in his ways.'

Jack looked up, affronted, at his partner, while Bozer grinned and reached out and bumped his fist to Mac's, as if to say, _good one, bro,_ while Riley, too, smirked, eyes sparkling with mischief.

The Texan turned to the Australian woman on the screen, almost-pouting.

'Come on, Cage, back me up here!'

She was older than Mac, Riley and Bozer by a handful of years, and she was more serious than them, so perhaps she'd help him out…

Cage just smiled one of her enigmatic little smiles, a hint of mischief appearing in her eyes.

Jack sighed internally.

He was on his own.

The young 'uns really had no respect for their elders, did they?

* * *

The small group of children approached the front door of the heavily-decorated house with some level of trepidation and an awful lot of excitement.

(There'd been a really, really awesome haunted house here last year, and they were looking forward to seeing what had been cooked up this year.)

The door was opened by a dark-haired young woman, her hair swept up into a messy bun, wearing trousers, a loose-ish white shirt, a vest and a cowboy hat and boots. She also had a gun holster with an ornate pistol in it on her hip, and she looked sad and resigned when she greeted them.

'Welcome to town, kids. I hope you're brave, 'cause there's something really wrong here…' Wide-eyed, the kids stepped into the house, and the woman pointed down the hallway. 'Best go that way.'

* * *

The hallway was eerily quiet, and shadowed. One of the girls jumped a little when, she swore, one of the cacti _moved,_ but it seemed to be a false alarm.

Then, suddenly, a woman who looked as if she'd been drained of all colour, wearing an extremely fancy dress and bonnet, burst out of a doorway and into their path.

She bore a rather eerie resemblance to the woman who'd greeted them at the door.

She looked down at them over her fan, something very, very sad in her eyes.

'Have you seen my husband?' She took a step closer, as the kids took a step away from the ghostly woman. 'Have you seen him? Have you?'

She kept stepping closer to them, and the kids kept stepping back, being herded into another room by her, before, eventually, turning and running into that other room.

It was pitch-black, except for the sounds of clanking, of metal-on-metal.

There was also muttering, in a male voice, the volume so low it was hard to discern.

'…Just another four hundred, just four hundred more…five hundred eagles, $5000, then I can marry her, her daddy promised…'

Suddenly, there was a flash of flame in the corner, illuminating a young man, face gaunt, just as ghostly as the woman in the fancy dress, wearing a leather apron and toiling over an anvil, a huge pile of horseshoes and spurs and door hinges and the like beside him.

He looked up at the children, as if he were only just noticing that they were there.

'Got an order for me?'

Shaking their heads, backing away slowly, the kids hurried into the next room, which was full of shelves packed with glass bottles containing strangely-coloured liquids, some glowing. In the middle of the room, there was a man wearing trousers and chaps and a loose shirt, as well as a cowboy hat, a gun holster strapped to each leg, lying on a table. He was also very, very still, and there was a young woman with long hair in a neat braid, in a simple shirt and skirt with an apron over the top, bent over the table, apparently trying to stitch a wound on the man's chest back together.

Both of them looked just as grey and faded and ghostly as the blacksmith and the fancy lady they'd passed.

The doctor (or nurse) working on the man smiled at long last, and patted his shoulder gently.

'There you go, Mr Dalton. All better now.'

The children glanced at one another.

He didn't look better at all.

He looked dead.

Still, he got up and tipped his cowboy hat at the young woman.

'Much obliged, Miss Taylor. Hope your father changes his mind soon.'

She nodded, a sad little smile on her face, and Mr Dalton stood up properly, walking towards the kids.

There seemed to be a large hole in his chest.

The kids backed away much faster, running into the last room, which appeared to be a saloon, complete with slightly-dusty tables, cobwebs, and several cow skulls on the walls.

There was a man tending the bar, looking just as ghostly as everyone else, except the woman who'd opened the door.

He finished cleaning the glass in his hand with a rag, and put it down and grinned at the kids.

'Looks like y'all could do with a drink.' He reached under the bar and brought up a tray, containing glasses of what seemed to be sarsaparilla…with eyeballs floating in it in lieu of ice-cubes. 'Try some, it's delicious!'

The kids backed away, stammering out refusals, only to hear a voice behind them.

'Boo.'

They screamed, jumped and turned, to find a very short woman wearing a cowboy hat behind them, an utterly terrifying look on her face.

They screamed again, as the ghostly saloon owner came ever-closer, holding out his tray of eyeball-sarsaparilla...

'Try some, it's delicious….'

* * *

'That was so _awesome!_ '

'Best haunted house _ever_!'

Mac-the-ghostly-blacksmith, carrying a large bag of candy, grinned at the kids clustered in the front entryway around Bozer, Riley and Beth, who were handing out candy from bowls shaped like cow skulls.

He headed over to Beth first, since her candy bowl looked the closest to being empty. She was crouched down, talking to a little boy wearing all-black, an eye-patch, a red headband, and a bright-red scarf around his waist, with a toy parrot on his shoulder and carrying a katana.

'I really like your costume, miss!'

Beth smiled as she dropped a few pieces of candy into the boy's plastic pumpkin bucket.

'Thank you! I really like your costume too! You're a pirate-ninja, right?'

The little boy positively beamed at her, nodding enthusiastically, before bouncing off to the door where his mother waited. Beth watched him and his friends leave with something soft and gentle in her eyes. Mac glanced over at her, silent for a moment, before opening the bag of candy and holding it up.

'Refill?'

She glanced up at him, still smiling and looking happy and at ease, and held up the bowl for him to pour the candy into.

(That made him very happy; she'd been hesitant – yet again – when he'd invited her over for Halloween.)

(But, this time, she'd accepted the invitation without any external encouragement, after he'd reassured her that Jill was invited too – she'd wound up declining as she'd gotten another Halloween invitation; the Edwards team liked to put on a haunted house at Nick and Rowena's every year too – and that she wasn't imposing in the slightest, she wasn't being invited out of obligation or anything like that, they just wanted her there. He just wanted her there.)

* * *

As they headed back inside after a stint handing out candy in the garage, gunslinger Jack and society lady Diane exchanged a knowing, affectionate look as they watched the tableau in the entryway.

Beth was chatting animatedly to a little girl dressed in a doctor's outfit complete with a real stethoscope, showing her how to use it on an obliging Mac.

(Apparently, it took the combined power of an attractive, fiercely stubborn woman that he was starting to really, really _like_ and an adorable little girl to turn him into a good patient.)

Bozer and Riley were taking advantage of the brief lull between groups in order for the former to help the latter snap a couple of cool pictures of her in costume (her character's backstory – Bozer had written full ones for each of them – involved her being a Wild-West bounty hunter who'd stumbled upon a very strange, scary little town) to send to Billy.

Beth finished her demonstration, and both she and Mac grinned at the little girl and her father, Beth grabbing a few pieces of candy from the nearest bowl and dropping it into the little girl's 'first aid kit'. The little girl waved at her as she and her dad left, until she rounded the bend in the path and was no longer in sight of the front door. Beth waved back, a bright, soft smile on her face.

Jack did not miss the glance that his partner gave the young doctor. Neither did Diane.

He reached out and wove his fingers through Diane's, as Riley smiled at her phone, eyes soft and loving, doubtlessly reading a message from Billy.

'Grandkids on the horizon, eh?'

Diane slapped him lightly on the arm, though her eyes were less reproving than he might have expected.

'Don't count your chickens before they hatch, Jack Wyatt Dalton.'

Jack just gave a little smile in return.

It was really, really, really early days yet, but he had a gut feeling, and you had to trust the gut.

One day, he was going to be Grandpa Jack.

He just knew it.

* * *

In the kitchen, making up another batch of the eyeball-sarsaparilla (the eyeballs were really lychees stuffed with fruit preserves and a blueberry), Matty, wearing a cowboy hat but nothing else in terms of a costume, smiled as she watched Riley smile fondly at her mom and Jack holding hands, Beth and Bozer take a silly selfie together, and Mac excitedly check his security system (slightly re-purposed for the night) as they waited for the next group of haunted house 'victims' to come up the driveway.

She knew first-hand the sacrifices that their work required.

She knew how isolating it was, how hard it was to maintain relationships with those outside the business.

She was very glad that they'd found a family.

They were very lucky.

She was very lucky.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…The top-secret plans for a highly classified and heavily compartmentalized DoD project were stolen eighteen hours ago.' The day after Halloween, Matty turned away from the big screen in the war room to face Mac, Jack, Bozer and Riley. 'At least, that's what the DoD _thinks_.' That got her an array of raised eyebrows, and Mac reached down and grabbed a paperclip from the bowl. It began to take the shape of a question mark. 'Luckily, there's only one suspect.' She tapped the screen and a generic silhouette of a man's head, with a question mark over it, appeared. 'Meet Suspect 237, master thief, who has stolen everything from a Monet to classified government secrets. Unfortunately, no one has ever photographed him or gotten a physical description.'

'I'm getting some serious déjà vu here, Matty. And not the good kind!'

Mac's expression grew wry, as he gave a little nod of his head in Jack's direction.

 _Jack has a point._

 _Last time we had an encounter with someone known only by a casefile number, he tried to kill my best friend, my partner, Riley and our boss._

 _And me, of course._

 _And the fall-out was pretty spectacular._

 _Me and Boze had a fight about something other than who ate the last of the Cheerios or me turning his laundry pink by mistake for the first time in years._

 _I said some things to Nikki about her family that I'm not proud of._

 _Cindy got me banned from the dating site we met on for ghosting her. I'm not proud of that either, but as I said…fall-out. And I was holed up in the Latvian embassy; couldn't exactly text her back._

 _And Murdoc's still trying to hurt me and everyone I care about._

 _Yeah, that was not a good couple of days._

Matty put her hands on her hips, and leaned closer to Jack.

'Well, put on your big-boy pants and stop jumping at shadows, Dalton!'

(They were all fluent enough in Matty's unique language now to know that that was her way of reassuring Jack.)

(It was weird, but it was very her.)

Matty removed her hands from her hips and tapped the screen again, bringing up photo of a USB stick that looked, frankly, completely ordinary.

'There's a tracking device embedded. It's physically impossible to remove without destroying the data itself…' A look crossed Mac's face, briefly, but there long enough for them all to see. He was taking that as a challenge, wanted to try and test himself and see if he could do it, just for the sake of it. Matty made a mental note to arrange for Mac to put the DoD's tech to the test. (She was very fond of him, after all…and she did love to keep the DoD on their toes.) '…and it was _supposed_ to be un-hackable.' Mac, Jack, Bozer and Riley exchanged a glance. Apparently, Suspect 237 had managed to get in and disable it anyway. 'DoD can't get back in to reactivate it.'

Matty looked pointedly over at Riley, who couldn't help herself and gave a little grin with a touch of a smirk.

She, too, loved a challenge.

Jack reached out and put an arm around her shoulders, a very proud-papa smile on his face.

'But they ain't got a Riles.'

* * *

 **SEVEN HOURS (AND A POT OF COFFEE) LATER**

* * *

Riley's computer, newly-modified by her, with Mac's assistance (no-one touched her rig without her express permission – even Mac knew better than to try and make any changes or cannibalize its parts), chimed, as she drained the last of the pot of coffee that Bozer had made.

Jack, who was sprawled out in one of the war room's armchairs, dozing, sat up suddenly, comically.

'Got him, Ri?'

The hacker gave a smile that was both grim and satisfied, even a little proud, and nodded. She turned her laptop around, so that Jack, Mac, Bozer and Matty could all see the screen.

There was a slightly-grainy CCTV photo of a thirty-something Asian man on the screen.

'Based on the data from the DoD's tracker and cross-referencing it with all available CCTV, traffic cam, ATM cam and social media footage, that's Suspect 237.' Riley changed the window on her screen, to a map of LA with a red dot, moving relatively slowly, on it. 'And he's right here in town.'

* * *

 **FIFTY FOUR MINUTES LATER**

* * *

'Seriously, brother, we gotta have a serious talk about your driving!'

Jack, buckled in securely, nonetheless grabbed hold of the nearest available thing, which happened to be Bozer's shoulder.

(He, Bozer and Riley were all jammed into the back seat of a car that Mac had 'borrowed'. Suspect 237 – they still hadn't worked out his real name – had made them for more-or-less what they really were as soon as they'd gotten within thirty feet of him, necessitating this crazy car chase.)

Mac himself was driving, and had just pulled a particularly sharp U-turn, as Riley frantically typed on her laptop to make things easier for them and harder for 237 by hacking the traffic cams and keeping an eye on the man himself, who was in another 'borrowed' vehicle.

'Nearest left, Mac…'

He took that quite literally, slammed on the brakes, and reversed ten feet so he could turn left down the street they'd just passed.

Bozer gave an undignified and unmanly yelp, right into Jack's ear, causing the older man to make a loud noise of protest.

'Mac, bro, I love you, but I refuse to believe that Frankie and Smitty were this bad!'

Mac's explanation for his somewhat questionable driving was that he'd been taught by MIT students and had hardly driven until he'd wound up in Afghanistan.

(Driving through the desert, sometimes evading enemy fire and always keeping an eye out for IEDs, was really a whole other kettle of fish to driving down the street.)

* * *

Mac slammed on the brakes again, leading to more cursing from the back seat, reversed, and made a very sharp turn, just in time to see 237's car crash hard, head-on, into a red truck.

A very familiar red truck.

The thief reversed slightly, but didn't get far, as Mac pulled their car into his potential escape path. Then, the four Phoenix agents exchanged a glance, Jack looking pointedly at Riley, who just gave a little shake of her head.

She hadn't known they were in town.

She hadn't known _he_ was in town.

Jack, Mac and Riley all reached out to open the nearest door, as Mama Colton, Billy, Jessie and Frank, all armed, got out of their very battered truck.

* * *

'Oh, you have _got_ to be kidding me!'

Jack cursed as he opened one of the car's front doors, as Mama opened the other.

237 was not in his stolen car.

Instead, there was a hole (a very small hole, considering, but cat burglary was one of his known skills) in the floor of the car, just above a manhole. The hole appeared to have been cut using some kind of blowtorch.

(Or a laser torch like the one Mac had made in Finland, but Jack thought that less likely. He was pretty sure not many people could go all Luke Skywalker with an old DVD player and a normal torch; his partner was special. In more ways than one.)

Across the front passenger seat and the driver's seat, Mama shot him a look that put Matty to shame.

'You just cost us $3 million.' Jack's brow furrowed in confusion, as Mama continued. 'He skipped bail as nine different aliases, my Frank noticed it was the same guy.'

Jessie crossed her arms.

'He's the biggest mark Colton Bail Bonds has ever had…'

Mama glanced over at her daughter, nodding, then glanced back at Jack, who didn't look happy himself, and Mac, who seemed to be rather fascinated with the hole in the floor of the car.

(That, Mama was sure, wasn't faked. MacGyver was a great young man, but he was real weird.)

'…And y'all just let him get away.'

' _Excuse me_! We were just about to catch him, weren't we, brother? _You guys_ got in the way!'

Mac, rather awkwardly, but very earnestly, raised his hands, one palm facing Mama and Jessie, the other his partner.

'Clearly, we all have the same aim: catching 237. Arguing amongst ourselves just gives him more time to get away, and we _did_ make a very good team last time; strategically speaking, it's more efficient if we collaborate…'

* * *

Meanwhile, Bozer and Frank, off to one side (there wasn't really enough room for more than four people to crowd around 237's car), stood in somewhat awkward silence.

Bozer couldn't stand awkward silences, so he broke it.

'So, uh, do you like _Star Wars?_ And I don't mean, like, necessarily, in the whole celebrate-May-the-4th way, though 'course it's cool if you're into that, 'cause it's seriously awesome, an old buddy of mine from my burger-flipping days, Luis, used to hold these awesome May the 4th parties…'

Frank just raised an eyebrow.

* * *

As Mama and Jack argued while Jessie watched with her arms crossed, Mac mediated his heart out, and Frank and Bozer had a conversation about _Star Wars,_ of all things, Riley strode over to her boyfriend, crossing her arms.

They were silent for a second, something a little tense, a little awkward, simmering between them, before Riley spoke.

'Just passing through?'

Billy gave a small smile, looking as sheepish, as apologetic, as he ever did.

'I was hoping to pay you a surprise visit if we were still on the West Coast once we got our man…'

After a beat, Riley just gave a little nod in understanding, then smiled up at him, simply happy to see her boyfriend, and hopeful that they could steal at least a few hours or maybe even a couple of days together, later, after they caught 237. Billy smiled back at her, just as happy to see her, something in his eyes suggesting that he was already making plans for _later._ For _after._

(She got it.)

(She really, really did.)

(She and Billy had to keep their work very separate from their relationship, couldn't talk much about it, since she was a covert government operative and he was a bounty hunter who occasionally skirted the edges of the law.)

(It sucked, but they made it work.)

* * *

 **ANONYMOUS MOTEL**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'I got him in Santa Monica, eight minutes ago.'

'And I've got him heading down the I5, right now.'

Mac, Jack, Bozer, Riley, Mama, Billy and Jessie all stared at Frank and Riley, who were both working on their laptops in the motel room.

(Matty and Mama had come to the same deal, the same contract, as they had the last time, so the Coltons were now temporarily 'contractors' for the Phoenix Foundation.)

They all knew that 237 still had the USB on him; Riley had tracked it through the sewers and now, apparently, down the I5. But, somehow, Frank also had 237 in Santa Monica, based on all available camera footage.

It was Mama Colton who spoke.

'I'm not doubting y'all…' She knew her son and Riley were two of the best in the business, if not the best. '…but how can he be in two places at once?'

Both hackers gave helpless shrugs. Jack opened his mouth, as if to say something, but was quelled by Mac shooting him a _look._

(None of Jack's suggestions for being in two places at once would be scientifically plausible.)

Instead, the blonde spoke.

'The logical thing to do is divide and conquer; Frank, Riley, Bozer, keep digging…'

Jack turned his head and grinned at Billy.

'Me and Billy-Boy call dibs on Santa Monica!'

Riley shot him a _look._ Jack ignored her, and she rolled her eyes and mouthed _sorry_ at her boyfriend, who just grinned, as if to say, _no need to worry, lady._

Mama watched with a look of amusement and an arched eyebrow.

'So that leaves me and Jessie and Baby Einstein to head down the I5.'

Mac groaned.

Apparently, a promise of payment wasn't the only thing Mama Colton had gotten from Matty.

Riley grinned in amusement, Jack chortled and Bozer nearly-giggled.

Mac rolled his eyes, the gesture not short of affection.

 _What else is family for?_

* * *

 **SANTA MONICA PIER**

* * *

In slightly-awkward, slightly-tense silence, Jack and Billy strode down Santa Monica pier, deftly evading tourists as they kept their eyes peeled for 237.

They doubted (strongly doubted) he'd still be here, but maybe he'd left a clue or two behind.

As they walked past a group of particularly rowdy tourists, Jack broke the silence.

'I like you, Billy. You're a good guy, and your Mama would've raised you to be a gentleman.' Jack paused, stopped in his walking, and looked Billy Colton square in the eye. 'But you break her heart, even just a tiny bit, and I'll break you. Capiche?'

Billy, to his credit, looked Jack right back in the eye.

'You really don't do subtle, do you? Riley said you'd barrel right into me, but that was a whole other level.' His expression grew very serious. 'And capiche. Breaking her heart is the last thing I wanna do. Riley's an amazing woman.' He paused. 'And she can look after herself.' A fond, truly smitten smile grew on his face. 'If I break her heart, she'll ruin my life with a couple of keystrokes.' He paused again, glancing back at Jack. 'But I'm glad she's got you helping watch her back.'

Jack, too, smiled, and held a hand out for Billy to shake, before the two of them got back to work.

Riley had found a good one.

* * *

 **ANONYMOUS MOTEL**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Jack and Billy found nothing.

Frank, Riley and Bozer hadn't gotten anywhere either.

But Mac, Mama and Jessie had something.

Or, rather, three somethings.

Jessie held up an extremely-unusual-looking Halloween monster mask.

(Part of the reason why it looked so odd was that it was about two-thirds burned.)

(Mac had had a chance to extend the little trick he and Alex had pulled off a week and a half ago, by using it to put out a still-burning car.)

'Pretty sure this isn't stocked at your standard dollar store or costume shop.'

Mama Colton tossed a plastic evidence bag containing a bloodied knife onto the coffee table.

It was clearly not a prop. They all hoped the blood was animal, and not human.

She raised an eyebrow, letting it speak for itself, as Mac held up the third item, the top half of a grocery store receipt.

He was met with several raised eyebrows, and he just shrugged.

'Even bad guys need to do grocery runs.'

* * *

 **HIGH-END COSTUME SHOP**

 **LA**

* * *

Jack and Riley pulled up down the block from the costume shop that she and Bozer had traced the partially-destroyed Halloween mask to. They got out of the car, and started walking towards the shop.

They'd barely taken three steps when Riley turned to Jack, crossing her arms.

'You threatened him.'

It wasn't a question.

Jack looked her dead in the eye, knowing better than to play dumb.

'We had a good chat.' She raised an eyebrow. 'Uh, yeah, I did.' Riley stared at him for a long beat. She looked halfway between wanting to yell at him, because she was a grown woman and could look after herself and she did _not_ need Jack to protect her…and wanting to hug him, because he cared enough, more than enough, to protect her, look out for her. Shovel talk her boyfriend for her, like a good father. She compromised by shooting him a _look,_ then shaking her head affectionately. 'I know you can look after yourself, Ri. Promise.' He had trouble, sometimes, with that, had to remind himself. It was hard, sometimes, to look at Riley and not be reminded of that brilliant, closed-off, fiercely, stubbornly, independent twelve-year-old, who'd refused to eat the dinner he'd cooked her and insisted on making her own, even though, at that age, she'd been a worse cook than him, and had cut herself on a tin can and locked herself in the bathroom to deal with it herself, rather than letting him help. 'I can ruin those pretty-boy looks for a couple of months, but you can ruin his life, and burn far fewer calories doin' it. Just…I want you to know, I'd do it for you anyway.'

She stared at him for another long moment, then reached out and hugged him tightly.

Smiling over her shoulder, Jack returned the hug just as tightly.

* * *

 **A GROCERY STORE**

 **(HEY, MAC'S RIGHT)**

 **(BAD GUYS HAVE TO EAT TOO)**

 **LA**

* * *

Mama, Frank and Jessie strode into the grocery store, eyes peeled, though they appeared to everyone around them to just be stopping by for a grocery run.

Subtly, Mama gestured with her head towards one of the security cameras, then towards the manager's office. Frank nodded and started winding his way towards said office, while Mama and Jessie headed over to one of the counters to cause a _scene._

* * *

 **ANONYMOUS MOTEL**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

As Mac carefully swabbed some of the blood off the knife with a Q-tip and placed it into a mixture of stuff that he'd obtained from the convenience store and the pharmacy down the block, Bozer, leaning against the wall, turned to Billy, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking for all the world casual and relaxed.

(They were both kinda superfluous, since whatever Mac was doing – he was now squinting at his makeshift test-tube of unknown fluid and blood and muttering under his breath, before dropping in a crushed tablet of some kind – they didn't understand it.)

Bozer crossed his arms and put on his most threatening expression, channelling Liam Neeson.

'If you break Riley's heart…I know kung-fu. Well, sorta. And not exactly kung-fu.' Bozer paused, making sure his expression was suitably menacing. 'You break her heart and… _I will look for you, I will find you and I will kill you.'_ He paused and made a very _Bozer_ face. 'Well, not kill. Just…injure badly? But not so badly that you can't be patched up?'

Billy repressed the urge to laugh; as silly as his words were, Bozer was completely serious about hurting him if he hurt Riley. Even if Billy knew that Bozer knew that he was completely out of his depth.

(Billy could take him in a fight, perhaps not with complete ease, since Bozer _did_ do lots of combat training with the Phoenix, but Billy had had a near-lifetime of training from his Mama, and Bozer was, until reasonably ecently, as civilian as one could get.)

The bounty hunter looked up at the other man, expression serious.

'It's the last thing on my mind, promise.' He smiled. 'Makes me real glad she's got so many people looking out for her.'

Bozer smiled too.

Riley was awesome and amazing, and she deserved just as awesome and amazing.

Billy did seem to fit the brief.

* * *

'Hey, Boze, can you go grab these things from the vending machine downstairs?'

Mac held out a list. The first time on it was Coca-Cola. Bozer, by now used to Mac's crazy ideas, ability to make strange things out of strange combinations of normal things, and general weirdness, hardly raised an eyebrow, and just headed downstairs to buy his BFF an awful lot of soda.

Billy, who was peeking out the window from behind the curtains, closed the curtains again and turned to Mac, who had returned to doing whatever tests he was doing on the blood from the knife (he had a little bit dissolved in some kind of liquid in one of those little containers used for storing makeup samples and was slowly adding drops of some kind of other liquid using an eyedropper), an eyebrow raised.

'You gonna give me a shovel talk too, MacGyver?'

Mac finished his test, made a little _huh_ sound, and then looked up at Billy, a wry and slightly amused expression on his face.

'Nope, I think you've had enough of them…' His expression shifted to something more serious. '…and Riley is more than capable of looking after herself. If she thinks you deserve it, she'll have your fingerprints linked to every open homicide investigation in the country and all of your accounts frozen and your credit history destroyed. I don't know what I'd be able to do to help…' He truly didn't. He could almost-certainly come up with a dozen options if it came to it (hopefully it would not), but he had no ideas _now_. He looked the other man dead in the eye. '…but if she wants it, she's got my help.'

Billy nodded just as seriously, before he smiled and gave a little chuckle, shaking his head in amusement.

'She's more than worth it, but seriously…two dads, a mama almost as scary as mine, and two brothers? It'd be enough to send most guys running for the hills!'

Mac, too, chuckled, then pointed at Billy.

'Oh, wait until our boss has her chat with you…'

* * *

 **A HAUNTED HOUSE**

 **(A VERY SCARY-LOOKING HAUNTED HOUSE)**

 **(ACTUALLY SCARY, NOT FUN-SCARY)**

 **(TRUST ME, THERE'S A DIFFERENCE)**

 **LA**

* * *

Jack and Riley pulled up at the house, which they'd located based on a vehicle description from a clerk at the costume shop, and some hacking of the DMV and LA's traffic cameras.

Jack had barely put the handbrake on when two other vehicles pulled up, one of which was the Coltons' very battered and very distinctive truck, the other a car that'd been parked in the lot of the motel they'd been based in, which'd been presumably 'borrowed'.

Jack glanced at the young hacker, and grinned, spreading his arms wide.

'All leads lead to the haunted house, eh, Ri?' He paused. 'You get it, right? You know, all roads lead to Rome…'

Riley rolled her eyes with very exasperated affection.

Jack's puns were _terrible._

* * *

The Coltons, Jack, Mac, Bozer and Riley, the first five with their weapons drawn, carefully entered the haunted house, to find themselves in an entryway with three corridors, one to the left, one to the right, and one straight ahead.

They all paused in the entryway and exchanged a glance. Jack shook his head vigorously, waving his hands as well.

'Oh, no, we ain't doing that. We ain't!' He jabbed his finger at Mac. 'You haven't forgotten Bermuda, have you?' He pointed at himself. 'Handsome jock. Always dies first! Always!'

Mac made a very long-suffering noise. Bozer and Riley snickered, Billy grinned in amusement, and Frank and Jessie exchanged a disbelieving look, while Mama Colton gave a snort.

'A, you're not that handsome, Jack, B, you are, obviously, still alive, and C…it's the most efficient way to search the place.'

Billy, standing next to Riley, gestured towards the right corridor with a grin-smirk on his face.

'Ladies first.'

She shook her head with a very fond little smile, and the two of them headed right. Jack seemed to be internally debating whether he should protest that or not, so Mac grabbed him by the arm and tugged him down the left corridor, Bozer following without a discussion. Mama Colton, Jessie and Frank took the corridor that led straight ahead, Mama in the lead, her shotgun at the ready.

* * *

'All I'm saying is, it's Dia de los Muertos, the spirit world and our world are real close, man, and we got a baddie who can be in two places at once!' Jack gesticulated as he, Mac and Bozer walked through the haunted house, all on high alert. 'What if he ain't one of us, and I don't mean not one of us like I think you're sometimes actually a native of Alpha Centuri Prime, brother...' Jack pointed at Mac, who rolled his eyes. He'd heard Jack's argument that he was actually an alien stranded on Earth sixteen times, but he was definitely 100% _Homo sapiens sapiens_. '…but not one of us as in he _was,_ but then…' Jack drew a finger across his throat. 'And then, since this…' He gestured to their surroundings. '…is his work…'

Suddenly, Mac flung out an arm, stopping Jack and Bozer in their tracks. He stared for a long, long moment at the carpeted hallway in front of them, before crouching down, then lying down on his stomach and slowly commando-crawling forward slightly. Mac felt along the carpet for a while, before finding what he was apparently looking for, pulling out his Swiss Army knife, and digging it into a patch of carpet…and prising open a trapdoor.

A trapdoor big enough for any one of them to fall through.

Jack, Mac and Bozer all exchanged a glance, then Jack gestured towards the revealed trap.

'If I fell down that, I'd fall forever through a bottomless pit of doom where no-one could hear me scream, wouldn't I?'

As Jack continued to rant and rave about the horrors of falling forever (which, Mac had to agree, would be awful – he wasn't really scared of _heights_ , exactly; like all people scared of heights, he was really afraid of _falling_ ), Bozer turned to his BFF and stage-whispered.

'This is what you had to put with in Bermuda, wasn't it, bro?'

Mac just nodded.

'Yeah, for _hours_. _And_ with him complaining he was hungry, too.' At Bozer's raised brow, Mac continued with a half-shrug of his shoulders. 'I wouldn't let him eat the canned corn.'

Bozer clapped a hand on Mac's shoulder in sympathy.

They all loved Jack to bits, but his complaining drove them all crazy.

(Even if it helped Mac think.)

* * *

'Oh, no you don't!'

Jessie grabbed her Taser from her belt, and jammed it firmly into the suit of armour that was attempting to skewer her with its sword. The electricity arced across the metal, frying the electronics that powered it, causing it to drop to the floor at her feet with several loud clanks.

Meanwhile, Mama Colton expertly fired a round through the eye hole in a second suit of armour (this one wielding an axe), clearly damaging something vital, because that suit of armour face-planted on its own weapon.

Frank had his arms wrapped around the third suit of armour (which had a Morningstar in its right hand), hanging onto its back and evading said Morningstar as he sliced through some exposed wires. After cutting the third wire, the suit of armour froze completely, and he gave it a firm kick, causing it to topple over.

* * *

Mac kicked over the table in the middle of the room, and he, Jack and Bozer dove behind it, narrowly avoiding the arrows that were being shot at them by, of all things, an arrow-shooting machine that seemed to be straight out of _Lord of the Rings,_ if not for the fact that it surely had to be powered by electricity, since there were no orcs or trolls around to turn a wheel or something like that.

The blonde risked sticking his head out so he could get a better look at the machine, almost literally missing being hit by an arrow by a hair's breadth when he ducked back behind cover.

He turned to his partner, gestured at Jack's gun.

'Aim for the giant copper cog at the bottom left.'

Jack nodded seriously, stuck his head above the table briefly to get a good look, then returned to cover, waited for the arrow to go whistling over their heads, and then ducked back out to fire back at the machine.

He hit that giant copper cog dead-centre, and the machine made a spluttering noise, before _exploding,_ showering them all in dust and ash and filling the room with a rather unpleasant smell.

Jack and Bozer, with ash in their hair, turned balefully to Mac.

'Did you know that was gonna happen, brother?'

Mac just gave a rather sheepish little smirk, shaking some ash out of his own hair.

'Uh…I crudely estimated the probability at 40%?'

* * *

'Riley!'

The hacker felt herself being tackled to the ground by a familiar weight, and not even half a second later, a wickedly sharp-looking blade went _wooshing_ over her and Billy, passing through just where her neck would have been half a second ago.

After another second, Billy pushed himself up onto his elbows, staying down just in case, as both of them breathed hard, adrenaline still coursing through their systems.

Riley, still catching her breath, reached up and put a hand on his cheek for a moment, desperately wanting to kiss her boyfriend for saving her life, but realizing that this was absolutely not the time.

They couldn't afford to get distracted in the middle of a deadly haunted house.

Instead, she smiled at him, straightening his hat playfully.

'Nice save.'

Billy just grinned back at her, before getting up and holding out a hand to help her heave herself to her feet.

They held hands for a moment longer, watching the hallway before them for any more signs of traps, before glancing at one another, nodding, letting go and walking down the hall.

* * *

A few minutes later, Riley tugged Billy close to her, pressed him right up against her, her back pressed to the wall in turn, just as the seemingly-innocuous little table at the end of the hall _belched a fireball_ right at them.

He stared at her for a moment, then at the fireball-spewing table, then right back at her, shaking his head fondly with a smile, before reaching up to tuck a lock of her hair that'd come loose from her ponytail behind her ear.

'You _do_ hate owing anyone, lady.'

* * *

Mama Colton, Jessie and Frank paced around the room that they'd finally found themselves in. It was, apparently, a dead end.

The only entries and exits were the corridor that they'd come out of, and a door that clearly led outside, which was sealed shut.

(They'd tried and failed – several times – to open it.)

Frank, who was on his phone, looked up at Mama and shook his head silently.

Whoever (presumably Suspect 237) had constructed this literal house of horrors, which was obviously a trap of some sort, had set up state-of-the-art signal jamming.

Jessie kicked the door leading to the outside in frustration, earning her a look of reproach from her mother, who spoke after a moment.

'We get stuck, we look for a new angle. I didn't raise y'all to give up.'

They heard a noise above them, and instantly, all three Coltons had their guns pointed at the ceiling…in which a hole opened.

A second later, Billy dropped through the hole, followed by Riley.

Two seconds later, a very old-looking oil painting peeled away from the far wall, opening like a door, to reveal Mac, Jack and Bozer.

Everyone stared at the three of them.

Mac just shrugged. Jack held his hands up and out, raising his shoulders, as if to say, _don't ask me._ Bozer looked very sage, knowing.

'Told you, man, this is _Scooby Doo_ gone dark!'

* * *

Five minutes later, Riley and Frank were trying to get around the signal jamming, while Mac, with assistance from Bozer, Jessie and Billy, was trying to open the door, but not having much success. Jack and Mama Colton were a little ways up the hallway on the floor above, after having gone through the trapdoor which Riley and Billy had come through, looking out a window that they were fairly certain looked out over the door that Mac was trying to open.

They saw movement on the edge of the yard.

A moment later, nine men, all clothed in black, all of the same build and height, and all with dark hair (though some appeared to have dyed it that colour, rather than being naturally black-haired), and all carrying nasty-looking semi-automatics, slipped through a loose board in the fence.

All nine were apparently practically cat-burglars, given the tiny space they contorted themselves through.

Jack and Mama exchanged a glance.

They had _not_ seen that coming.

'So _that's_ why he could be in two places at once.'

'And skip bail nine times in nine states within six months.'

'And, you know, steal all that stuff without getting caught…' Jack made a face. 'Mac's _never_ gonna let me live this down, Mama!'

Like everyone else, Mac _loved_ being right.

He especially loved being right when it meant that Jack was proven wrong.

(Jack just took heart in the fact that at least Mac was nowhere near as bad as his dad. That guy took intellectual superiority to a whole other level. Even if he was, objectively, intellectually superior to anyone Jack had ever met, save the younger MacGyver.)

Mama Colton just arched a brow at him, as if saying, _you're on your own,_ before sticking her head down the trapdoor and calling out to her kids and the younger Phoenix agents.

'Long story short, 237's really nine different fellas and they're all pissed off and armed and outside that door.'

Mac immediately stopped trying to open it, spat out the piece of chewing gum he was chewing, and jammed it into the lock, as Billy and Frank grabbed the large armoire in the corner and started moving it towards the door.

Mama, followed by Jack, dropped back into the room, as Mac's thinking-face changed to his _I-have-an-idea_ face and he pointed to the corner.

'Boze, grab me that sword. Riley, can you grab those fake cobwebs?' He whirled around, eyes scanning the room for what he had at his disposal, and his eyes landed on Mama Colton. 'Mama, I'm going to have to borrow your scarf…'

He whirled around again and darted over to the other side of the room to grab a Jack-O'-Lantern, as Mama began unwinding her scarf, having witnessed, first-hand, what Mac could do.

He'd saved her and her children and their businesses (both the diner and Colton Bail Bonds) a couple of years ago, in exactly the state he was in now, so she was going to listen, even as Jack leaned over and stage-whispered in her ear.

'You're not gonna get that scarf back…'

Frank, meanwhile, continuing to blockade the door by moving furniture with his brother, glanced over at the blonde.

'Exactly what _is_ our plan?'

Mac, who was stuffing the huge pile of fake cobwebs into the Jack-O'-Lantern as he supervised Bozer and Riley knotting Mama's scarf around the sword in a certain way, looked up, a little smirk on his face that he didn't seem able to help.

'We're going to give them a taste of their own medicine.' His expression softened a tiny bit. 'My grandpa always said, turn the weapon they're trying to use on you against them.'

He nodded in satisfaction as Riley showed him the finished sword-and-scarf thing, and gestured for her to pass it to Billy so that he could hang it over the door, directing the bounty hunter to tie the loose end of the scarf around the doorknob in a certain way, before gesturing to the passageway behind the painting.

As they all ran through the passageway, with Mac in the lead, Bozer called out to his BFF.

'Bro, your grandfather was talking about Donnie Sandoz, not nine baddies with AK-47s!'

It occurred to Bozer, though, as he spoke, given the relatively recent revelations about Mac's family (specifically his dad, and the fact that Harry Jackson – and Ellen MacGyver – had known the truth all along), maybe Harry Jackson really _had_ been trying to advise his grandson how to deal with heavily-armed bad guys…

'Jack, pull the cord down as you pass it, and someone kick down the trapdoor to our left…'

* * *

Mac checked on the Jack-O'-Lantern containing the fake cobwebs and various other bits and bobs that he'd picked up along the way laying in the still-smouldering fire in the fireplace in a room that he and Jack and Bozer had been briefly trapped in, on its side so that its contents did not fall out.

Jack, who along with the others, was converting the remnants of several other traps, including the one that'd trapped the trio earlier, into a brand-new trap according to the blueprints in Mac's head, looked rather sceptically at the slightly-burning pumpkin.

(Sure, he'd witnessed literally thousands of Mac's 'miracles', but this was a weird one. A really weird one.)

'You sure that Jack-O'-Lantern's oven-safe, brother?'

Mac prodded the pumpkin with the poker, turning it slightly so that he could see what was happening to its contents, then using the poker to stir the sludgy, foul-smelling mixture congealing on the inside of the pumpkin.

'This, Jack, is the original pumpkin pie. Well, sort-of. Early American settlers used milk, honey and spices instead of cobwebs-in-a-can. And eating this would probably kill you.'

Mama Colton raised an eyebrow, staring at the not-a-pumpkin-pie as if it were sacrilegious.

'Angus MacGyver, if we get out of here in one piece, I'm making you a proper pumpkin pie.' She looked rather like she'd slap his hand with a wooden spoon if she had one. 'Calling that thing of yours a pumpkin pie...'

She shook her head, and behind her mama's back, Jessie just grinned at Mac, who shrugged sheepishly.

He wasn't going to complain about getting some of Mama's pie.

* * *

Nine sets of footsteps neared them.

The repurposed traps had slowed the 237s, but hadn't stopped them.

(One – or nine – did not become the best thief in the entire USA without being really, really good at getting out of a sticky situation. Or twenty.)

Hurriedly, the Coltons, Riley, Bozer, Jack and Mac climbed into the little alcove hidden behind another oil painting.

(It had previously held the machinery needed for a particularly complicated trap, half of which had been repurposed into another trap for the 237s in the doorway, the other half of which had been shoved into the wardrobe in the corner.)

Mac, holding the pumpkin with the goop lining the sides, and Jack, holding his gun at the ready, were closest to the painting-door, the blonde holding the it ever-so-slightly ajar, listening very carefully.

The footsteps grew closer.

And closer.

And closer.

Then, there was a _click._

'What the-'

Mac quickly turned to his partner.

'Aim for the nose.' He tossed the pumpkin into the room full of master thieves occupied with their final trap as Jack fired off a single bullet with deadly accuracy, straight through the Jack-O'-Lantern's nose, before pulling the painting shut firmly. 'Hold your breath!'

Mac covered his mouth and nose with his arm, as everyone else did the same. They heard a bang, slightly muffled by the painting, and after counting to ten in his head, Mac opened the painting-door again.

The room was full of acrid-smelling smoke.

There was exploded pumpkin on the walls.

There were also nine, spluttering, coughing, teary-eyed master thieves lying on the floor.

The Coltons and the Phoenix agents exchanged a glance, before each of them got to work cuffing the nearest thief.

'Y'all so much trouble, Mama's gonna have to see if she can get a bonus for picking up nine of you…'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…Come on, Mama! Please? With a cherry on top?'

His mouth full of Mama's delicious pumpkin pie, Jack begged the bounty hunter for the recipe. Riley, leaning on Billy's shoulder as they sat side-by-side on the war room couch, swallowed her own mouthful of pie because she was civilised (unlike a certain someone) before speaking.

'You can't even bake, Jack.'

The less said about Jack's pie-baking attempts, the better.

'Yeah, but Boze can, and he owes me for saving his life! Wookie life debt, you know!'

Bozer looked incredulous, putting down his own fork.

'Excuse me, _what_ Wookie life debt?'

Jessie and Frank shot their brother a teasing look (they were going to tease him mercilessly later about whether he really wanted to become a member of this crazy family), while Mac and Matty exchanged a fondly exasperated glance over their slices of pie.

They happened to be facing the right way to see Beth approach the door, looking very doctor-y and fiercely determined. Mac assumed that she wanted to speak to Matty, thinking that their debrief would be over by now (which it was), since they'd all stopped by the infirmary to make sure that his makeshift tear gas hadn't caused any of them any harm earlier.

She noticed that they were otherwise occupied as she reached the door (they'd frosted all the glass except for the door), and turned around to leave, looking a little awkward, and Matty just smiled knowingly at the blonde agent standing beside her.

'The Docs want an MRI machine.' Those were very expensive, though Mac felt that it would definitely be very useful, and the investment would probably save the Phoenix in the long run, given the cost of an individual MRI scan at a discreet private hospital. 'I'm _much_ more easily persuaded while eating delicious pie…'

Matty could definitely be subtle when she wanted to be.

The whole saga with his dad being Oversight proved that.

But often, Matty was a bigger fan of the sledgehammer approach.

And she definitely was when it came to this sort of thing.

Mac shook his head with very exasperated affection (his family seemed to think that there was no such thing as a _private_ life), but got up anyway and stuck his head out of the war room, calling out to the young doctor.

'Would you like some pie, Beth?' He held up his plate of half-eaten pumpkin pie. 'Mama Colton's pumpkin pie is even better than Bozer's, and that is really saying something.'

Beth smiled, bright and wide and childlike.

'Well, I can never say no to pumpkin pie…'

He grinned and took a step back into the war room, then opened the door a little wider for her. Matty, meanwhile, had cut Beth a slice of pie, and simply handed it to her. The young doctor took it eagerly, and enthusiastically took a bite, which made her face light up even more.

(By that point, Mac had thought it was impossible for her to look any _brighter.)_

(He was proven wrong, empirically.)

(It was adorably ridiculous.)

(And ridiculously adorable.)

'We've done the cost-benefit analyses, and we had Accounting check it over; assuming that the current number of Phoenix agents and the rate at which they require MRIs remains steady, we break even in 4.78 years…'

'…Oh, come on, Mama, have pity on a fella!'

'You put cardamom in this, didn't you?'

'Lady, I love you and your family, but they are several kinds of crazy…'

'So is yours…but I'll love you anyway.'

Mac smiled and took another bite of pie.

* * *

AN: Oh, come on, after Season 2's Halloween episode, I had to do a Halloween ep! I had so much fun writing this, especially the opening! Did you guys like my 'casting' of the gang for Halloween? (To be honest, I think the show's casting of the team as zombie-Wizard-of-Oz characters was better, but the wild-west-ghosts-with-a-touch-of-steampunk just hit me and would _not_ let go…) What'd you think of this ep's guest stars? Or Jack and Bozer's shovel talks? And Mac's not-a-shovel-talk? Do you think I managed to keep everyone in-character and sounding like themselves? (I had a bit of difficulty writing the Coltons, even though they've appeared twice now, I've found it hard to get their characters and voices down pat…) I think I've taken the whole master-thief-is-actually-several-people plot point from somewhere, but for the life of me, I can't remember where…anyway, point is, I don't think I can take credit for that.

I'm giving you guys a hint right now – this ep lays the groundwork for the first major, multi-ep story arc for this season…any guesses as to what that groundwork is? Or precisely what might happen in this arc?

There is no _Detours_ episode tag for this ep, but here's the press release for the next episode (which I hope to have up in 2 weeks):

3.09, Twigs to Snowshoes. Mac, Jack and Riley find themselves in northern Canada. _Far_ northern Canada. In November. In bear territory. Meanwhile, a father-son fishing trip and its aftermath causes Mac to wonder if he and his dad are making any progress.

Will Jack finally get to fight a bear? Tune in next time to find out!


	9. Twigs to Snowshoes

AN: This episode is dedicated to Gib and helloyesimhere, for reasons that will hopefully become clear to them!

* * *

 **SOMEWHERE NEAR-ISH TAHOE**

 **(CALIFORNIA SIDE)**

 **(JUST)**

* * *

As James MacGyver drove his own Jeep up the winding road through the forest, Mac's eyes widened in realization as he finally worked out exactly where he and his dad were going on their fishing trip, and he turned to the older man, who spoke before he could.

'Took you long enough, Angus.'

He managed to make it sound more like teasing, rather than a condescending statement.

Mac shook his head and spoke using that same teasing tone.

'I was four last time we came here.'

It'd been just before his mom got sick. Just before Walsh poisoned her, doomed her.

That five-day long weekend was still one of Mac's very favourite memories. At four, the memories were patchy, a little blurry, but they were utterly, totally, cherished, as were the even blurrier memories from even earlier trips here.

They reached the end of the road. It didn't lead up to the cabin, and there was no driveway to speak of, so they had to hike the rest of the way. Father and son each grabbed their pack from the back of the car, as well as their fishing gear, and started walking in reasonably companionable silence.

About halfway up to the cabin, Mac paused, and following one of those old, old memories, started down a barely-there path, almost pushing through the undergrowth until he reached a clearing in the forest, right by the edge of the lake.

The view was just as breath-taking as he remembered.

He smiled, soft and reminiscent and a little sad and wistful, dropping his gear to the ground without even thinking about it, backing up a touch and sitting at the foot of a huge tree (it was so old and so large, it was exactly as he remembered it, even if it'd been nearly twenty-four years and he was much bigger now), staring out at the water.

* * *

 **SAME PLACE**

 **DIFFERENT TIME**

 **(A VERY DIFFERENT TIME)**

* * *

'Wow…' Three-year-old Mac stared wide-eyed, letting go of his mom's hand as he stepped forward to take in the view better. 'You can see really, really, really far!'

Ellen MacGyver smiled, reaching out to ruffle her son's hair a little, before rearranging it carefully back to exactly how he liked it.

Only three years old and a little bit pedantic, in the way that his dad so often was.

(Other kids might say you could see _forever._ Gus wouldn't, because it, A, didn't refer to space, it referred to time, which was just plain wrong, and B, even if _forever_ was taken to refer to space, it wasn't true.)

She sat down on a root under the big, old tree a few feet back, and after a couple of seconds of just staring across the water, eyes bright, Mac walked over and settled himself by her side.

'This is a very special place, Gus. And not just because it's so beautiful. Do you want to know why?' Her son nodded eagerly. Ellen smiled indulgently. He simply loved knowing things, had curiosity and a love of learning even more boundless than other children, something she hoped he never, ever lost. One could always learn, always should, even when one was old and grey, and it was so much better when you still loved it so. Ellen's soft smile changed a little, grew more reminiscent. 'This is where your daddy asked me to marry him.'

Mac made a face.

'There was _kissing,_ wasn't there?'

His voice and the look on his face very concisely expressed how he felt about such an _icky_ activity.

(He was pretty sure that cooties didn't actually exist…but still, _icky_.)

Ellen's smile grew mischievous, something bright and a little child-like appearing in her blue eyes, and she leaned over and started pressing little kisses all over her son's hair and forehead and cheeks. He squirmed half-heartedly, making a show of putting up a fight, but cuddled closer to her anyway.

It was this scene that James MacGyver, carrying a tackle box and three fishing rods (two adult-sized, the third a child-sized one that was a gift from his father-in-law for Gus), came upon, and he smiled, genuinely, unguardedly, soft and fond, making eye contact with his wife over their son's head (he was now giggling and squirming as his mom tickled him). They shared a tender, happy look for a moment, before James' smile widened and Ellen stilled her hands on their boy's stomach.

'Ready for your first fishing lesson, Gus?' The little blonde boy nodded eagerly, as his dad crouched down beside him. 'Remember what I told you, about how fishing lures attract a fish's attention?'

Mac nodded, just as eager.

(His daddy surely had to be the cleverest daddy in California, at least. He always had something new to teach him, and he wanted to be just like him when he grew up.)

'Movement, vibration, flash and colour!'

* * *

 **SAME PLACE**

 **PRESENT DAY**

* * *

Mac was pulled out of his memory by his father's footsteps. He looked up at him, and after a moment of hesitation, James MacGyver sat down under the tree too, a couple of feet away from Mac.

They sat there in silence, a somehow more companionable, comfortable silence than earlier.

Then, James spoke, somehow seemingly knowing which memory Mac's mind had gotten lost in, something wry and yet tender and a touch sad and wistful in his voice. More emotion, softer emotions, than Mac had thought his father capable of for many, many years.

'That was probably the most romantic I could ever manage.'

There was something in his voice, something that Mac swore sounded like he wished he'd done better by her.

(It was, simultaneously, somehow, both incredibly unlikely and so likely it was practically a certainty.)

(Mac had had, over the years, many, many doubts about his father. He still had plenty. But he had no doubt that James MacGyver had loved his mom with all his heart.)

(He was emotionally distant. Jack and Bozer would probably call him emotionally constipated. Everything about him screamed that he didn't _do_ romantic, but Mac didn't doubt that he'd have done his best for his mom.)

Mac was well aware that doing _better_ referred to far more than a marriage proposal.

(God knew his father had made many, many terrible decisions that'd hurt his mother.)

But his grandfather had always said that you had to start somewhere. Start from the beginning. Start small.

He turned to his father, looking him in the eye.

'She really appreciated it. And loved it.'

He'd been only three years old that day, in this spot. But he was as sure of that as he was of the Laws of Thermodynamics, quite suddenly.

He just knew. It was a little illogical, but he just did.

A little flicker of surprise crossed James's face for a moment, before he smiled, just as genuinely as Mac remembered him smiling that day, though smaller and sadder and _older_ now.

'Your mother…she was very special.'

'Yeah.'

They returned to sitting in silence, now truly comfortable, companionable.

Mac smiled a little wider.

His mom would be happy. Proud.

* * *

As his dad let them into the simple little cabin, Mac looked around, taking in the familiar little pot-bellied stove, the hand-hewn rafters, even the ancient leather couch.

It looked far too clean, far too well-kept, to have been abandoned for nearly twenty-four years. It couldn't have been even recently cleaned up and restored.

There was a thoroughly modern security system.

No, even if the reasonably regular vacations here had stopped after his mom had passed away (it was _their_ place, the three of them and sometimes his grandfather, and without her…it hurt too much – that was one of the very few things that Mac and his dad had agreed upon), _someone_ had continued to pay regular visits.

He turned to his father, who swallowed and nodded.

'I've come up here from time to time…' He paused, and when he spoke, there was something confessional, honest in his voice. Even if there was still the vague sense of that honesty being like pulling teeth. 'This place was too special to her to let it fall into disrepair.'

Mac also got the sense that as much as it hurt, as much as those memories, that association, hurt, there'd been a sense of comfort in being here. A sense of being as close to Ellen MacGyver as they could be now.

He certainly felt it now.

* * *

They ate fresh-caught fish cooked on an open fire.

They went hiking through the woods.

They even made s'mores.

Mac's dad made a distinct and much-appreciated effort to _not_ turn everything into a teaching opportunity. To recognize that he wasn't ten anymore.

He should have known it wouldn't last. That it wouldn't be so simple.

Nothing ever was with his dad, after all.

* * *

'Angus, wake up.' In the middle of the night, Mac was pulled from his sleep by his dad's voice, which was all business. James MacGyver was standing over him, far enough away that he wasn't looming (so there was no risk of Mac accidentally attacking him while still half-asleep), his pack slung over his shoulder. 'I have to go.'

Mac, legs still tangled in his blankets, hair messy with sleep, sat up quickly.

'Why? Where?' His dad just raised an eyebrow at him, and Mac rolled his eyes, not bothering to keep the hurt and annoyance out of his voice. 'It's need-to-know and I don't need to know. Of course.'

'Part of the job.' The _and_ _you should know that_ was left unsaid, but obvious in the older man's tone. 'I'm taking the Jeep, you'll need to find your own way home.' He started making his way towards the door, but paused and turned a couple of feet away from it. His voice was a tiny bit softer, a bit more like his _dad_ and less like his boss. 'You've still got thirty-seven hours of leave.' He tossed a couple of keys to Mac, who caught them easily, even in the dark. 'Lock up when you leave.'

And then he was gone.

Mac stared at the door for a while, then at the silver keys in his hand, and then at the kitchenette counter, where the beer bottles and the half-eaten bag of marshmallows from the night before were still sitting.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair.

Then, he kicked off his blankets and sat up properly, heading over to the pot-bellied stove to start boiling some water for coffee.

There'd be no going back to sleep now.

* * *

 **RANDOM SPOT BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD**

 **(NO, REALLY)**

 **SOMEWHERE NEAR-ISH TAHOE**

* * *

Mac was standing on the side of the road, a pack on his back and one of his lost-in-his-big-brain-and-not-in-a-good-way looks on his face.

Suppressing a worried sigh, Jack, driving his Shelby Cobra, pulled up beside his partner, forcing a complaining expression to his face.

'Brother, next time you text me for a lift, you gotta pick a better spot! None of this numbers-and-letters stuff, I want something like the Denny's on Main St in some small town, okay?'

Mac didn't return serve. Instead, he just dumped his pack in the back and got into the front passenger seat, buckling himself in.

'Thanks, Jack.'

Jack sighed internally again, not able to prevent his worry from flashing across his face for a moment as he started the engine again.

So it was that bad.

'You wanna talk about it, son?'

'No.'

Mac sounded a bit like a surly teenager again. Clearly, having to grow up too fast had lasting consequences on one's psyche.

Jack deliberately didn't look over at his partner as he looked for a good spot to do a U-turn. Or, more likely, a three-point turn, given how narrow the road was here.

(He was pretty sure that Mac – and his dad – had been further in the woods, up an even smaller road, or somewhere inaccessible by road. Mac looked sweaty and physically exhausted, like he'd hiked a long way, probably deliberately.)

(He was a guy who sometimes physically exhausted himself in an attempt to get around his overly-active brain so he could actually _rest_ and be _calm,_ after all.)

'Well, you always know where to find me, son, if you do.'

Mac managed a weak but completely heartfelt little smile at that, and glanced over at him.

'Thanks.'

He noticed the insulated _Bob the Builder_ lunchbox in the footwell of the front passenger seat, and picked it up, raising an eyebrow at Jack, who just smiled.

'Boze sends his love.' Mac opened the lunchbox, finding that it contained a Reuben sandwich (homemade, with Bozer's incredible pastrami, of course), an orange, an apple and two of Bozer's amazing blondies. He suddenly found he had an appetite again (he'd skipped breakfast, not wanting any), and unwrapped the sandwich and took a large bite. Jack reached out and tapped a button on his phone (as instructed by Riley) to (apparently) push a playlist onto Mac's Spotify. The blonde smiled a little wider around his mouthful of sandwich as it arrived, and then, one-handed, pulled out his headphones to start listening to it.

(Riley probably understood his feelings towards and his relationship with his dad the most, given her own relationship with her father. Though, as much as he hated the fact he felt that way, sometimes, Mac was a little jealous; often, it really did look like Elwood and Riley were doing so much better than him and his dad).

(He pushed those thoughts aside, and focused on the feeling of the wind in his hair, the taste of the sandwich in his mouth, the music that Riley had thoughtfully prepared for him.)

At least his family was always there for him.

* * *

 **BAD GUYS' BASE**

 **SOMEWHERE IN CANADA**

 **(FAR NORTHERN CANADA)**

 **(TEMPERATURE: HOTH-LEVEL)**

* * *

'This whole ice-base thing was _way_ cooler when the Rebel Alliance did it!'

Mac, Jack and Riley, wearing full snow-gear, pelted through the base of the large-scale weapons smugglers, pursued by a rather angry group of said weapons smugglers.

They'd been sent on an intel-gathering mission. They were not supposed to draw attention to themselves, just get into their servers and surveil.

 _Supposed to_ being the operative term.

 _Nothing_ ever went to plan.

Mac, who'd been fiddling with something (thank God that Phoenix techs – with a little help from him – had invented a material enabling the production of very warm gloves that didn't terribly hamper one's dexterity) that was partially based on Jack's phone, tossed the device over his shoulder and started running faster, encouraging Jack and Riley to do the same.

A few seconds later, there was a _boom_ and a wave of heat behind them, melting part of the ice tunnel, causing it to collapse and trapping the smugglers.

Jack turned his head to have a quick look, and something impressed flickered across his face, before he returned to grousing.

'And not that that wasn't awesome, brother, but it was way better when it didn't involve blowing up my phone!'

Mac and Riley, on either side of Jack, exchanged a long-suffering glance.

* * *

 _Hey, in my defence, everything's cooler in Star Wars._

* * *

 **SIXTY MILES FROM BAD GUYS' BASE**

 **MIDDLE OF NOWHERE**

 **SOMEWHERE IN FAR NORTHERN CANADA**

* * *

'Uh, Mac, are they _supposed_ to be leaking?'

Jack looked rather concerned as he glanced back at the trail of some kind of liquid over the pristine white snow that their snowmobiles were leaving. (Mac had attached a tarp to their vehicles, so that they'd sweep away most of the furrows that the snowmobiles left behind, but it wasn't doing anything for this oily stuff.) They'd put distance between themselves and the pursuing smugglers, but knew that they had to keep moving.

The leaking didn't bode well.

Shouting over the din of their snowmobiles, Mac replied.

'No!' He looked behind them, and swore internally, cursing himself for not properly and thoroughly checking over the snowmobiles before they'd left the base. They were leaving fuel behind. 'Someone cut the fuel lines!'

He signalled for them to stop, and Jack and Riley did so, gathering around him as he crouched down and examined his snowmobile.

Jack crouched down next to him, a furrow in his brow that wasn't really visible due to his hat and snow goggles.

'If they cut the fuel lines, how'd we get so far, brother?'

Mac, who was holding up said fuel line in his gloved hands, pointed to the jagged-edged split in the line.

'They cut them, then patched them, badly. As we drove, it increased the strain on the patch job, and then it failed.'

Riley crouched down beside the two men, glancing between Mac and the fuel line.

'Can you fix it?'

Mac sighed and shook his head.

'Properly? No. But I can get us another hundred miles or so.'

The three looked at one another, and Riley made an expression of distaste.

'I _hate_ cold missions.'

Mac and Jack just glanced at each other, then back at the hacker, and spoke in unison.

'This hasn't got anything on the Bering Strait Incident.'

'And it's still much warmer here than it was in Siberia. Both times.'

Riley rolled her eyes, then looked very seriously at them. _Far_ too seriously.

'I'm going to get the Bering Strait Incident story out of you two.'

Jack and Mac glanced at each other again, and then the older man spoke.

'Oh, there ain't enough tequila in the world to get that story out of us, Ri.' He paused for a moment, and Riley could _hear_ the smirk-grin in his voice, though she couldn't see most of his face. 'Or maybe vodka would be a more appropriate drink of choice, eh, brother?'

Jack nudged Mac none-too-gently with his elbow.

The blonde just snorted and rolled his eyes (leading to Riley to conclude that vodka was most _definitely_ somehow involved in the Bering Strait Incident), and handed Jack the sat-phone.

'For that, _you're_ calling Matty.'

Jack made a face (at least, Mac was completely certain his partner was making a face at him from behind all the snow gear, anyway).

'Aww, _man_!'

Mac pointed a finger very firmly at him.

'We swore _never, ever_ to mention the vodka-Bering Strait relationship ever again. _You_ broke it, _you_ have to pay a price.'

Jack huffed and shook his head, but started dialling anyway, as Riley started scheming as to how she (and Bozer) could get the Bering Strait Incident story out of the partners.

(Beth would probably help too, and she was really good at Mac-wrangling.)

They were going to find out _one_ day.

It was just a matter of how long it took.

* * *

'…Mac can get us another hundred miles or so, we'll be further than they think…'

They were well aware that the smugglers' search radius would expand once they weren't found, but it'd at least buy them some time.

'And if we head north-west, towards the forest, we'll have more cover. And they won't expect us to head that way.'

Matty's voice was, to them, distinctly concerned when she replied over their sat-phone.

'That's because we can't land an ex-fil jet anywhere within thirty miles of those woods…'

'You can't land one anywhere within a 150 mile radius of here; heading for the woods gives us the best chance of evading our pursuers long enough to hike to ex-fil.'

There'd be no chance of finding another form of transportation here in the middle of nowhere.

Jack and Riley shared a glance, then glanced at the sat-phone, as if looking at their boss. Mac's logic, as always, was sound.

There was quiet for a moment, before Matty replied.

'You've got six hours of daylight left, and there's a minor blizzard forecast for tonight.' Matty's voice would probably sound worried to people who didn't know her as well as they did now, which wasn't surprising. They were in the middle of nowhere, in far northern Canada, in November, being chased by angry bad guys and with no prospect of ex-fil for at least, Mac estimated, eighteen hours. 'Keep me posted.'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Bozer hung up and pocketed his phone, having just been briefed by Matty. He turned to the prosthesis he was preparing for May (the Edwards team were wheels up in five hours for the Philippines) and addressed it, picking up his paintbrush to keep working, putting effort into grinning and keeping his tone light.

'Someone's gotta keep the home fires burning, right?'

The worst thing, he'd quickly realized, about not going into the field with his BFF and Jack and Riley was the _worry._

That constant, low-level (most of the time) fear in the back of his mind that they might not come home in one piece (or close enough to one piece that the docs could put them back together again).

Right now, Mac and Jack and Riley were facing hypothermia, frostbite, falling down crevasses and potential bear attacks, plus vengeful and heavily armed baddies.

His worry level was higher than low.

Much higher.

Bozer sighed, shook his head a little and took a deep breath, trying to make himself focus. On the other side of the lab, Jill looked up from where she was prepping some field forensics kits for the Edwards team to take with them, and shot him an empathetic smile.

Bozer smiled back at her in thanks, took another deep breath, and returned to his painting.

* * *

A few minutes later, as Jill finished packing the last of her forensics kits, the lab doors opened, and in strode a very familiar blonde in his trademark tight (very tight, though she had absolutely no complaints there) white T-shirt and black leather jacket, hands idly solving his Rubik's cube.

(On the other side of the lab, Bozer wordlessly put his headphones on and turned up the volume, focusing on getting the nose of the mask he was working on just right.)

Alex smirked at her, but there was something very soft underneath it all, in his eyes.

(Something about that smirk and that look in his eyes made her insides want to melt to goo. She was completely sure he knew that, which was why he kept doing it.)

'Thought I'd pay my favourite forensic analyst a visit before wheels up.'

She put a hand on her hip and smirk-smiled back at him, tossing her hair a little.

'Well, I'd better check that I have time in my very busy schedule for you.'

He chuckled, stepping closer to her, idly putting down the now-solved Rubik's cube.

'Hopefully, we should be back within two weeks. I estimate that there's a 5% chance we'll take three weeks.' He paused, and seemed to try and smirk at her, but it came out as just a soft smile. 'A little incentive to come home sooner wouldn't hurt…'

Jill smiled back up at him.

'I'll block out some time for you in my schedule, two and a half weeks from now. Don't be late.'

She reached out and messed up his Rubik's cube for him, then handed it over, letting their hands brush together.

'Wouldn't dream of it.'

They were silent for a moment, her hand still resting on the puzzle in his, her looking up a little at him.

A silent conversation passing between them.

The moment broke with a couple of smiles, and not a second later, a loud voice floated through the lab doors.

'Oi, Flyboy, you done wooing Lil' Miss Morgan yet? We gotta head to Wardrobe and Armoury to get ready to bounce!'

Jill giggled. Alex rolled his eyes with very exasperated fondness and muttered something under his breath about Nick having terrible timing.

Then, he turned back to Jill.

'I'll see you…?'

'7 PM, that taco place you were telling me about, in two and a half weeks.'

Alex smiled and pocketed his Rubik's cube, then scooped up the forensics kits she'd prepped.

'With that incentive, I'll make sure I'm early.' He held up the kits as he walked backwards towards the door. 'Thanks, Jill.'

She smiled and waved sweetly at him, and he smiled back, a little wider, a little softer, and then he was gone.

Jill's shoulders slumped a tiny bit, burdened by just that tiny bit more worry, and it was Bozer's turn to look up at her, offer her an empathetic little smile.

'The worry sucks, but they're the best in the biz.' He shrugged. 'All we can do is help them as best as we can…' He gestured to the prosthesis in front of him, and the spot on the bench where Jill's forensics kits had been. '…and give them even more reasons to come home.'

* * *

 **MIDDLE OF NOWHERE**

 **(A DIFFERENT MIDDLE OF NOWHERE FROM LAST TIME)**

 **SOMEWHERE IN FAR NORTHERN CANADA**

* * *

Mac, Jack and Riley trudged through the snow, hauling one of the snowmobiles (now useless – at least, as a form of transportation; it was still useful in Mac's eyes, he'd salvaged some choice parts from the other two as well, and had loaded the one they were towing with the parts as well as filled a makeshift pack on his back before they'd buried the remains of the other two by tipping them into a handy crevasse and covering them with snow) behind them, as well as the tarp in an attempt to hide their tracks.

Jack shielded his goggle-covered eyes with a gloved hand as he turned his head to look behind them.

Hiding their tracks was not going well.

The snowmobile's tracks were being pretty well wiped-out, but their footprints were a whole other matter.

'Brother…'

Mac pursed his lips.

'I know.' He looked into the distance, squinting. Visibility wasn't great, with wind starting to whip up some of the finer, more powdery snow, but he could just see the forest they were heading towards in the distance. 'I have an idea.'

He started trudging faster.

Jack and Riley exchanged a glance (would it kill Mac to explain what was going on in his brain from time to time?), but trudged faster behind him anyway.

'Wait up, brother!'

'Seriously, we're not all, like, 65% legs!'

* * *

The three extremely tired Phoenix agents finally reached the relative shelter of the woods, and Mac immediately made his way to the nearest pine tree and started stripping thin, flexible branches off it. He removed the needles, as he gestured with his head towards tarp, pulling his Swiss Army knife from his pocket and tossing it at Jack, who caught it easily.

'Cut a few strips from the tarp, about a quarter of an inch wide and as long as you can make them.'

Jack nodded and got to work, Riley immediately moving to help him out. The older agent cut one strip and passed it to the blonde, who began tying the strip across the bent twigs in his hand in an intricate pattern.

'Not that I don't enjoy watching Wimbledon, man, but how are tennis racquets gonna help us out?'

Mac rolled his eyes, well aware that Jack knew he wasn't making tennis racquets (he was far from stupid) but was just being very _Jack._

'These are snowshoes, Jack. Not tennis racquets.' He gave a little smirk. 'We're going to engage in a little flotation.' The smirk shifted a little, to something a bit sheepish, as Jack looked irrationally excited (if he couldn't have a hoverboard, hovershoes were the next best thing), which made Riley roll her eyes too. 'Sorry, not literally…' He held up the snowshoe he'd just finished making. 'These will increase the surface area that our weight is distributed over, which means that we won't sink as far into the snow. So, it'll be easier to walk and we'll leave shallower tracks.' He handed the snowshoe to Riley, and got to work on another one. 'Strap that on…'

* * *

The markings on the tree, scored into the bark, caught Mac's eye as they passed it. He studied it for a second, waiting for Jack and Riley to catch up, brow furrowing in thought.

As they kept moving, his senses were on even higher alert.

* * *

There was a small pile of smelly brown scat at the foot of another tree, marked similarly to the tree they'd passed ten minutes ago.

The paw prints leading towards and away from the tree were also a dead giveaway.

Jack, when he noticed them, actually grinned and rubbed his hands together.

Mac and Riley exchanged a very exasperated, long-suffering glance, which Jack noticed, making him throw his hands up.

'Come on, you two telling me you've never wanted to go toe-to-toe with a grizzly?'

Riley and Mac exchanged another glance, Mac sighing, Riley staring even more incredulously at the older man.

'Absolutely not.'

'Nope.'

'And fighting a grizzly bear is a terrible idea. First priority is to avoid them, make noise to scare them off, etc. If that's not possible and we do encounter one, back away slowly and talk calmly to help the bear recognize us as human. They tend to retreat from humans. If that doesn't work, don't try to outrun it, climb at least 10 metres up a tree. And if that doesn't work…play dead.'

From the tone of her voice when she spoke, Mac knew Riley was raising an eyebrow at him, even if he couldn't see her eyebrows under her hat.

'Play dead?'

He shrugged.

'Playing dead has been statistically shown to reduce the level of injury sustained by grizzly bear attack victims.'

Riley's eyebrow rose further, voice sarcastic.

'Really reassuring, Dr Google. _Really reassuring.'_

* * *

'We need to stop for the night.'

The sun was just about done setting, the wind definitely picking up and the first flakes of snow from the forecast blizzard beginning to fall when Mac stopped as they approached a small clearing in the forest and spoke.

Then, to Riley's surprise, he crouched down onto the ground and started digging a hole.

'Uh…Mac? What are you doing?'

She'd have thought that he'd be cutting out blocks of compacted snow and ice to make an igloo.

This was clearly not an igloo.

Jack answered with a roll of his eyes.

'He's building an igloo.'

'It's not an igloo; it's not made of blocks of compacted snow and ice. It's a _snow cave_ , just like what we built in Siberia.'

Jack waved a hand.

'Eh, you say po-tay-to, I say po-tah-to, brother.'

Mac actually did look up from his task at that, _that_ look on his face that told Riley she was going to be in for a really long night.

She sighed and got to helping Mac dig. She was going to need to be warm ASAP, if she was going to deal with the Mac-and-Jack show all night.

(Sometimes, Mac could be infuriatingly pedantic.)

(And she was certain that Jack just loved to rile him up.)

'No, while they serve the same purpose, igloos and snow caves are extremely distinct. A, their mode of construction is extremely different, one being hollowed out…' Mac gestured pointedly for Jack to join him and Riley in digging, and he did, though not without some more grumbling under his breath. '…and the other built up off the ground, and B, igloos are exclusively constructed by humans, whereas snow caves are utilized by several other members of the animal kingdom…'

* * *

Jack looked balefully over at his partner as the three of them huddled in their small shelter.

'You're gonna tell me that we can't have a fire this time too, aren't you?'

Last time, there'd been nothing to burn, even if Mac could start a fire with just about anything.

This time, there was plenty of fuel around them, but Jack (and his buttocks) had a sneaking suspicion that the blonde was going to say no again.

Mac just nodded, looking, at least, a little sorry.

'We can't risk it.' He gestured around them. 'A, it'll melt the walls of our shelter, potentially burying us and destroying its insulative properties, B, we risk death by carbon monoxide poisoning or smoke inhalation; we can't have a chimney, it'll be far too obvious.'

They were all well aware that their pursuers could not be that far behind. Even with their covering of their tracks and Mac's hack to get them that extra 100 miles, plus their choice of an unexpected direction, any kind of systematic search was going to get them found eventually.

Jack sighed, then grinned and held up his arms in a very _Jack_ way, putting one arm around Mac's shoulders and one around Riley's.

'Well, guess we gotta huddle up tight, eh?'

* * *

'…Your SOS sign looked like the chemical symbol for sulfur dioxide; I warned you to ration out those rocks better…'

Half an hour later, Riley shut her eyes, threw her head back, and groaned.

Mac and Jack had been going on for _half an hour_ , and showed no sign of stopping.

Their banter was usually amusing, albeit annoying and a little weird, but in an affection-generating sort of way.

It gave them light in the darkness (the darkness that they so often faced), and for that, she was grateful.

But now, stuck in a six-by-six-by-four space with the two of them, there wasn't much that she wouldn't give for them to just _shut up._

Unfortunately, given Mac, Jack and Mac-and-Jack, Hell would sooner freeze over.

'…I got frostbite on my butt, brother! Frostbite! On. My. Butt.'

'A, I _know_ , and I did _not_ have to see that! And B, I _told_ you not to sit directly on the ground in one position for so long-'

'Well, I wouldn't have had to if you hadn't taken so long to make that radio, man! What were you doing, re-inventing the wheel?'

'You try making a radio out of a broken snowmobile!'

Riley rolled her eyes again, and made a note to ask Matty if she could get hazard pay for this. Then, she wrapped her scarf a little tighter around her head, hoping that the material would at least muffle the bickering a little more.

'…I had to scavenge not one, but two, transistors, and work around the fact that the resistors were not of the correct voltage…'

'English, brother, English.'

'That _is_ English! Wäre Deutsch besser? Zhong wen? Española?'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

In the middle of the night, Bozer woke up suddenly for no discernible reason.

Rubbing his eyes, he sat up on the couch in the Phoenix breakroom that he'd crashed on, shivering a little.

(He might live in sunny LA, but it was November, after all, and the HVAC was turned off everywhere except the infirmary at around 6 pm to save energy.)

(He was accustomed to being home alone – after all, even when he'd thought that his BFF worked at an actual think-tank rather than a pretend one, Mac was frequently on business trips or at Nikki's apartment – but tonight, he'd wanted to stay at the Phoenix.)

(With modern technology, it wasn't if he'd really hear news of Mac, Jack and Riley any sooner being here instead of in his comfy, big bed at home…but still, he wanted to be here.)

He stared into the distance, sighing, rubbing his arms.

If he was a little cold, how were Mac and Jack and Riley doing?

They'd be (hopefully not literally) freezing their butts off.

His still-developing spy senses alerted him to someone approaching, and Bozer turned, to find Matty walking into the breakroom, her expression gentle in a way that'd once have surprised, even shocked him, but didn't anymore.

There was also understanding and empathy in her eyes, and that worry that was gnawing away at him.

Matty walked up to the sofa, sat down on the edge beside him, and there was a companionable silence for a while, before Bozer, being Bozer, broke it.

'Almost wish you sent me with them.'

'Your skill set wasn't required and for this mission, the smaller the team, the better.' It was said as gently as Matty ever said anything. 'But watching from a distance can be harder than being in the field.'

Bozer just nodded glumly.

Sure, the glitz and glam of the international super-spy life had been a powerful lure (though he now knew it to be false, except for the occasional mission like that time in Azerbaijan with the WMD in the casino), but the main driving force behind his desire to become a field agent was so that he could be out there with Mac, Jack and Riley, rather than left behind at the Phoenix.

(He totally got why Mac and Jack hated being stuck in the infirmary so much.)

He suspected that as at home as she was running the Phoenix like a boss (literally and figuratively), calling the shots and terrifying the CIA and other alphabet agencies, sometimes, Matty wanted to be out there with her agents.

It was true that they couldn't protect Mac, Jack and Riley from the brutal, bitter Canadian winter; their presence wouldn't really help…but at least they could be with them.

That was something.

And better than waiting at home, even if home was comparatively warm and much more comfortable.

Matty and Bozer glanced at one another, sharing a look of perfect understanding, just as they heard footsteps approach. A second later, Beth appeared in the doorway, her arms full of a couple of neatly-folded blankets. She stopped in her tracks when she saw Matty, and took a half-step back, expression very apologetic.

'I'm sorry for interrupting, I just…' She walked quickly into the room, depositing the blankets in her arms on the end of the couch, before fiddling with her hands for a second, looking at Matty, seemingly feeling the need to explain the fact that she wasn't at her post in the infirmary. '…We only have one patient in the infirmary tonight, Agent Barker, and I came up here to make him a cup of chamomile tea, since the microwave in the infirmary kitchenette is broken, and I saw Bozer, and I thought he might be cold, so…'

She trailed off a bit awkwardly, and Matty gave her a small smile, voice firm, but gentle.

'Doc, you don't need to apologize for going above and beyond to do your job.' Matty's smile widened and grew more knowing, which made Bozer give a little grin that was almost a smirk as he snagged one of Beth's blankets. 'In fact, I have a special assignment for you.'

* * *

 **SNOW CAVE**

 **(NOT IGLOO)**

 **MIDDLE OF NOWHERE**

 **SOMEWHERE IN FAR NORTHERN CANADA**

* * *

'…Tell me, or I'll tell Bozer about Albania.'

Riley, sitting sandwiched between Mac and Jack, nevertheless managed to cross her arms and look threateningly at the two of them.

Brave as they were, Jack noticeably gulped, and Mac was clearly taking her threat very seriously.

The older man held up his hands.

'Woah, Riles, thought we all had an understanding; what happens in Albania, stays in Albania!'

Mac gestured at Jack as if to say, _he's right, this time._

The hacker just crossed her arms a little more tightly and raised an eyebrow a little higher.

Mac and Jack exchanged a look, before Mac sighed and Jack spoke.

'You got yourself a deal, Ri.'

'When it gets really, really weird…just remember you _did_ ask for it.'

* * *

'…And he goes and whacks the guy with a giant fish.'

'A sturgeon. It was a sturgeon. A female sturgeon, probably about four years old…'

Riley just shot Mac an incredulous look. He simply shrugged, a little sheepishly.

(He really couldn't help the fact that he knew, noticed and retained these things. Even if it was _really_ weird stuff 60% of the time.)

* * *

'… _That's_ why you refuse to drink vodka?'

Mac nodded, even as Riley continued to gape at him. Jack, meanwhile, smirked mischievously and slung his arm around his partner.

'Well, that's not the _only_ reason…when our boy here turned twenty-one, Penny roped Boze into planning this whole not-belated-birthday drinks for him, and-'

'We pinky-promised to _never, ever_ tell that story, Jack.'

He shut up. Pinky-promises were sacred, everyone knew that.

However, Riley just smirked, just as mischievously as Jack had earlier.

'Oh, that look on your face just told me everything I wanted to know, Mac…'

* * *

The next morning, bright and early, just outside the snow cave (which, despite Jack's complaining, had served them well overnight), Jack stretched, cracking several joints loudly, and grinned, reaching out and putting an arm around Riley's shoulders, then the other one around Mac's.

'We should do that more often!' At their raised eyebrows, he continued. 'Without the whole being stranded in bear territory in Canada and being chased by bad guys, being at risk of hypothermia etc.'

The two younger agents nodded, satisfied, and smiled too.

'Yeah, sharing stories _was_ nice.'

'But next time, we're doing it by Mac's fire-pit with s'mores and beer.'

Jack grinned a little wider and pointed at her.

'Amen to that, kiddo. Amen to that.'

* * *

 **THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE**

 **(A DIFFERENT ONE)**

 **(YET AGAIN)**

 **(EVEN IF IT ALL LOOKS THE SAME)**

 **SOMEWHERE IN FAR NORTHERN CANADA**

* * *

The three Phoenix agents stared at the large grizzly bear fifty feet in front of them.

The grizzly bear stared back.

Jack made to take a half-step forward, cracking his knuckles, only to be pulled back by his partner.

'No, _absolutely not_ , Jack.' Mac yanked harder on the older man's jacket as the bear began to approach them. 'Run!'

* * *

'Err…brother, you sure we've gone far enough up?'

Perched on a tree branch about 45 feet in the air, Jack looked down at the growling bear at the foot of the tree, then back up at his partner, who was a couple of feet higher on another branch, making something out of tree branches and a rock that he'd found as they'd run towards the large tree, scooped up and brought up the tree with him. Riley, who was sitting on another branch level with Mac's, just shot Jack an incredulous look.

'And who was Mr-Let-Me-Fight-a-Grizzly ten minutes ago?'

Jack held up his hands defensively.

'Hey, Riles, they look an awful lot scarier in person than on Animal Planet!'

Mac, who was carving a rut into the tree branch he was straddling, rolled his eyes and passed Jack a length of tarp, wound into a makeshift rope, which was tied to the tarp-wrapped stone.

'On my signal, let that go…'

* * *

At the foot of the tree, Mac, Jack and Riley carefully backed away, keeping an eye on the bear slumped over, unconscious, with the tarp-covered rock beside it.

'He's just out cold, right, brother? Not dead? 'Cause we were the ones who invaded his home, so…'

Mac and Riley just exchanged an exasperated, long-suffering glance.

 _Jack is never going to change._

 _And we wouldn't have him any other way…but still._

* * *

'Oh, you have _got_ to be kidding me!'

The three Phoenix agents stared at the sole smuggler perched on a snowmobile who had quite literally almost run them over.

Five miles from their ex-fil site, and _this_ happened.

Clearly, this was _not_ their mission.

The smuggler stared back, and then, quick as a flash, Mac, Jack and Riley moved.

Jack pulled out his gun and shot a bullet through the smuggler's sat-phone before he could do more than raise it halfway to his lips, while Mac reached down and made a snowball, tossing it into the man's face to buy Jack time to run forward and tackle him to the ground.

Meanwhile, Riley, who was holding the sat-phone on which they'd been conversing with Matty, spoke into it.

'Yeah…I think we're gonna have to call you back.' She crouched down and made a snowball with her free hand, just in case, as she explained to their boss, since Mac and Jack seemed to have the situation firmly in hand. 'One of the smugglers just almost ran us over…'

* * *

'…This will go off in thirty minutes to broadcast your position…' Mac held up something he'd rigged up from the sat-phone with a bullet through it and a part from one of their abandoned snowmobiles, showing it to the smuggler who had his hands secured behind his back, seated on the last remaining portion of their tarp. '…and your hands will be freed at the same time.'

He'd rigged up something else with snowmobile parts to free the man automatically, once they'd gotten far enough away, close enough to ex-fil, that the smugglers couldn't pose a threat to them anymore.

Mac also took the man's gun, checked the magazine, and then buried it in the snow, about two feet down, ten feet away, making sure that the smuggler could see him do so, and topping it off with a snowmobile part as a marker just to be sure.

This landscape was bleak and unforgiving. Deadly.

Bad guy or not, he couldn't leave this man in danger.

Then, he climbed onto the man's snowmobile, between Jack (who insisted on driving) and Riley, and they took off for their ex-fil site.

As they drove across the snow, Jack yelled back to his two companions.

'Don't get me wrong, I love you two, but I am so looking forward to getting my personal space back!'

'Hell yeah!'

'Agreed!'

* * *

 **EX-FIL SITE**

 **NOT IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE**

 **(RELATIVELY SPEAKING)**

 **(THERE'S NO DENNY'S FOR A THOUSAND MILES)**

 **SOMEWHERE IN FAR NORTHERN CANADA**

* * *

'Dry clothes, all of you, now.'

Mac, Jack and Riley were greeted by a surprise as they walked into the wonderfully warm Phoenix jet. Beth was waiting for them, and pointed at the rear of the plane, where the bathroom was, gesturing with her head towards Riley, then indicated Mac and Jack as she pointed to two areas that had been roughly curtained off using space blankets and medical tape.

Mac grinned as he headed into the curtained-off space she'd indicated to him.

Jack and Riley grinned too, exchanging a significant look as the hacker slipped past them towards the bathroom, very much keen to get into dry, warm, clean clothing.

Resting on the seat behind the curtain, Mac found the change of clothes he kept in his locker at the Phoenix (all Phoenix agents had a locker for storing their personal belongings when they were on missions; they were coded to their fingerprints and anyone they chose to authorise – Mac had authorized Jack, Bozer, Riley and Matty to open his; Beth must have raided their lockers, since as one of the medical staff, she could open them too). He picked up the chinos from the neatly-folded pile, and found that they were actually a little warm, kind of like they'd been in the dryer. He quickly found the reason; Beth had had the foresight and the care to place one of those instant heat-packs marketed as hand-warmers in each of the pockets.

He smiled, grateful and soft and fond.

She really was an excellent doctor.

* * *

Five minutes later, Mac and Jack, now in their clean, dry, warm clothing, tugged down the space blankets that had acted as curtains and sat down in their seats, both meekly wrapping themselves in the space blankets when Beth passed by and gave them both a firm _look._

Jack rubbed one of the hand-warmers between his hands and made a noise of contentment, leaning back in his seat, before gesturing towards the other end of the jet, where Beth was making what seemed to be three steaming-hot cups of chamomile tea.

'This TLC almost makes you wish you need medical attention, eh, brother?'

Jack was waggling his eyebrows.

Mac shot him a baleful look, as Riley emerged from the bathroom, also wrapped in a space blanket, and smirked at him, her eyes full of teasing and mischief.

'I think Beth would be interested in the Bering Strait Incident, particularly that bit involving the sauna…'

The blonde groaned.

It was going to be a long flight home.

* * *

 _That's family._

 _Can't live with them, can't live without them._

* * *

As they began to taxi for take-off, Mac, Jack and Riley, now wrapped in the real, comfier blankets that Beth had brought with her, since the jet was so spacious, sipped at their chamomile tea as the doctor finished packing up the last of her supplies (of which there were a lot – Mac was quite sure that aside from the obvious, she'd have made a much better Boy Scout than him) and buckled herself into her seat, gripping the armrests tightly and closing her eyes, the tension in her body clear, as the plane accelerated.

Mac, who happened to be sitting nearest her, lowered his mug of tea and leaned over to talk to her, keeping his voice low as Jack and Riley chatted loudly with Diane on Jack's brand-new phone.

(Matty had sent it up with Beth and the jet.)

'Aviophobic?' She opened her eyes and nodded rather sheepishly. 'Statistically, it is the safest mode of transport…'

Beth narrowed her eyes at him at that, and let go of one of the armrests to jab at the air in front of his chest with a finger.

'I _know_ that. That's why it's an _irrational_ fear, Mac!'

It was his turn to look sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck.

'If it makes you feel any better, I'm acrophobic.'

She stared incredulously at him.

'You, terrified of _heights_?' She blinked twice. 'Today, you reportedly built an Ewok trap for a bear while more than forty-five feet off the ground.' She gestured at Jack, who was grinning softly and affectionately at his phone, lost to the world. 'Last month, you jumped from one building to another in Seattle, nine stories up. A couple of years ago, you apparently hung onto a plane's landing gear while it was taking off!'

He shrugged.

'Sometimes, the job needs you to step up.'

He had a feeling that she understood that very, very well.

Beth looked around at the jet, though she did avoid looking out of any of the windows, then down at her hands, which were still clutching the armrests, though not as tightly as they had been, and nodded with a smile, the two of them sharing a glance full of understanding. Then, she smiled a little wider at him.

'Thank you.'

He smiled back, holding up one of the hand-warmers.

'Pretty sure I should be thanking you, but…anytime.'

* * *

 **MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

The day after he'd returned from Canada, Mac leaned back on the couch in the living room, placing his phone down on the coffee table.

He'd sent three texts to his father in the five days since their fishing trip was prematurely ended.

Five days since his dad had left in the middle of the night with barely a word.

He hadn't received a single reply.

He knew his dad wasn't in trouble, wasn't completely uncontactable, because if he were, Matty would have found some way to tell him, even without breaking her oaths.

Mac sighed and grabbed the remote, pressing play to start _Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. II_ as his automatic popcorn-making-and-delivering drone, slightly repurposed, brought over a plate of Penny's delicious home-made cinnamon rolls, freshly reheated.

(His ex-girlfriend, still-friend had baked them for him and delivered them to his door earlier in the day after hearing from Bozer all about the MacGyvers' fishing trip.)

(They'd become friends just before James MacGyver had left. She'd been there for the infamous birthday party, and she'd been there for Mac afterwards, just as she was now.)

* * *

The cinnamon rolls were all gone by the time Groot grabbed the bomb from Rocket's hands, heedless of the racoon's protests, and started running into Ego's core.

Mac cleaned his sticky fingers off with his handkerchief and sighed as he watched.

 _Sometimes, I think it'd be easier if my dad was an egotistical, narcissistic, probably psychopathic and genocidal living planet who'd murdered my mom._

 _I'm not saying I wish it was that way – far from it – but it'd be way less complicated._

 _Something to be said for simple._

* * *

Bozer padded out of his room and into the kitchen, intent on making a start on dinner, to find his roommate sitting on the couch, watching the latest _Guardians of the Galaxy_ film like his mind was somewhere else, a plate with some remnants of cinnamon sugar beside him.

Bozer sighed.

He reckoned that James MacGyver, even if Mac's grandfather had apparently kept him updated, didn't understand how badly his departure had hurt Mac.

(The other alternative was that he didn't care, but Bozer was certain that wasn't the case.)

(Sure, he was terrible at expressing his feelings – see giving your eight-year-old son college-level textbooks about building your own computer when he asked for one – but he did care about Mac.)

His BFF had refused to celebrate his birthday for fifteen years because of it.

There was a lot of pain there, a very old wound that had never really healed properly, and, Bozer feared, at times like this, would never really close.

He sighed again and shelved his dinner plans, instead texting three numbers.

* * *

Forty minutes after receiving Bozer's text, Riley opened the door to Mac and Bozer's house, balancing three large pizza boxes against her hip.

She was greeted by the sight of Jack sprawled out on one end of the couch, feet up on the coffee table next to a six-pack of Mac's favourite beer, chattering incessantly to the blonde, who looked morose, but was at least managing to roll his eyes from time to time at Jack's words.

As she brought the pizza over to the partners, her thoughts took a more bitter turn.

Her own father was an alcoholic, a gambling addict and a thief (or had been, he really had turned over a new leaf this time, she was quite sure now) but even _he_ kept coming back for second and third and fourth and so on chances.

Mac's dad was a hero, supposedly.

A good guy.

A really good guy.

But he didn't come back, and he never would have reached out if not for Matty.

She sighed internally and smiled as Bozer brought over plates and napkins, helping her dish out the pizza.

(Mac had apparently eaten an entire plate of cinnamon rolls, but with his metabolism, and habit of eating like a horse after returning from a mission – probably to make up for the fact that he usually ate only the minimum required to keep going when on a mission - he'd probably be hungry again by now, since Bozer reckoned that had been about an hour and a half ago.)

She'd just put one slice of meat lovers and one slice of vegetarian on a plate for Jack (he made a face at only getting one piece of his favourite, but Riley knew he accepted that too much bacon and sausage was not good for his cholesterol levels) when the door opened again and in stepped Matty, holding a vaguely DVD-player-looking object, which she tossed at Mac as she approached the living room and took the plate that Bozer had made up for her with a nod of thanks.

'DARPA made it. Make it better, Baby Einstein.'

The instant the unknown object landed in his lap, Mac brightened in a way that was almost childlike, and started examining it, before pulling out his Swiss Army knife to undo the screws, abandoning the plate of pizza he hadn't even touched.

Over their own plates of pizza, Matty, Jack, Bozer and Riley shared an affectionately exasperated smile.

Their boy was crazy.

But he was their boy.

* * *

AN: Whew! All done! This episode has taken me ages to write (something like two and a half weeks), because I've just been working to exhaustion in the lab – seriously, word from the weary: growing bacteria and hard thesis deadlines (I've only got about two months left!) do not mix! Hopefully that doesn't show too much in the writing, I think this is a touch choppy, but some of that is probably due to the kind of story I was trying to tell in this episode.

Anyway – as mentioned at the start of this episode, I need to give a very special shout-out to Gib and helloyesimhere! The former inspired many of the events that the team faced in Canada in a review on _Every End is a Beginning_ last year, while the latter inspired Mac's movie choice at the end with a comment on _Emergency Repairs_!

I hope you guys liked the way I've portrayed the MacGyvers' relationship – they have their ups and their downs, definitely, and I think there's always going to be some tension there, but I also wanted them to have their poignant moments. One of my very favourite scenes in this entire work to date, and my favourite in this episode, is the flashback scene with Ellen – one day, I really, really want to write James and Ellen's story as alluded to in this universe…but I fear I'll never find the time!

There's no episode tag for _Detours_ this time, but here's the press release for the next episode:

3.10, Minutes to Seconds. A senior Pentagon official's wife and children are kidnapped, and the team must rescue them before time runs out. Meanwhile, the MacGyvers mark the anniversary of Ellen MacGyver's death.


	10. Minutes to Seconds

AN: Apologies that this took so long; it's been a crazy couple of weeks and I've been exhausted of late! I tried something a little new this time; hope you like it!

* * *

 **GRAVEYARD**

* * *

Mac stood silently before the still-new headstone (it was almost a year old), not having any words to say.

 _But, as my grandpa used to say, sometimes, you don't need to say anything at all._

He swallowed, slipping a hand into his pocket to pull out a paperclip, which his fingers quickly began to re-shape without him really thinking about it.

Less than a minute later, Mac crouched down and set the paperclip, now shaped like an ice-cream cone, in front of the headstone, where it joined bunches of flowers, a genuinely adorable little ice sculpture of an adult penguin with a couple of smaller penguins nestled against her and a copy of Zoe's PhD thesis (posthumously completed by some of her students and her supervisor).

Then, he straightened, wiped the tears from his eyes and managed a smile, before turning, tightening his coat and scarf, and walking away.

* * *

 **ICE-CREAM PARLOUR**

 **(A VERY PARTICULAR ICE-CREAM PARLOUR)**

 **(IT DOES AMAZING ROCKY ROAD)**

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Mac sat at a table at the very back of the ice-cream parlour (Zoe's favourite, it'd turned out – Jack had dragged him here after the funeral, hoping to comfort him with a double scoop of rocky road, and the proprietor had taken one look at their black suits and sombre expressions and mentioned the fact, sad and sombre and affectionate), an ice-cream cone in hand.

(Rocky road, of course.)

(It was delicious. Best he'd ever had.)

(Zoe had great taste.)

(But he was sure it'd taste so much better if she were here to share it.)

* * *

 _They say time heals all wounds._

 _I'm not completely convinced._

 _Mom. Al. Grandpa. Zoe. Nikki, in a way. Dad, in a similar way._

 _My losses still hurt._

 _Sometimes, just as badly as the day I lost them._

 _Time has dulled the pain…but I don't think these wounds will ever fully heal._

 _And sometimes, I'm glad for it._

 _Yes, it hurts._

 _Maybe it makes me a masochist._

 _But if it still hurts, it means I'll never forget them._

* * *

As he waited for his flight at the airport, Mac's phone chimed, indicating the receipt of an email.

He unlocked his phone, to find that it was from his dad.

His dad practically never initiated communication. It was almost always Mac.

( _Oversight_ would have some kind of message – read: orders – for him from time to time. But _Mac's dad_ wasn't one to text first.)

But here was an email, out of the blue, right before his eyes.

Mac opened it.

It was short, blunt, even a little rude. But if he got anything else from his dad, Mac would consider the fact that he was being coerced and/or was leaving him a coded message to be the most likely possibility.

 _Angus – you remember the date._

 _I thought you'd like these._

Attached were a series of photographs.

From long weekends at the cabin in Tahoe to his parents' wedding to what seemed like a couple of carnival photo-booth pictures of his parents looking younger than he ever remembered seeing them (only his mom could have talked his dad into photo-booth photos, Mac was sure) to his first day at school, aged four.

He paused a little on that photo, staring at it, smiling fondly and softly and a little sadly and wistfully. He was so small, grinning in eager excitement from ear to ear. His mom was crouched beside him, her arm around him, looking so very happy and proud and a little sad that her baby was growing up so fast, and, somehow, at least 75% as excited as four-year-old him looked. His dad was standing behind them, a hand on his wife's shoulder, a hand on his son's, another one of those soft, fond, _loving_ smiles on his face that Mac sadly hardly remembered (they'd become pretty much non-existent after his mom died), eyes shining with pride.

He swallowed the sudden lump in his throat (it'd be twenty-two years in four days), and was snapped out of his reverie by an announcement.

'Now boarding Flight 237A to Los Angeles…'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…All I'm saying, brother, is that you can't prove that Marvin the Martian ain't walking around up there. And ain't you always saying that there's gotta be other life out there?'

As they walked into the war room, Jack pointed sagely at Mac, who just rolled his eyes with a very long-suffering look on his face, muttering something about the likelihood of any of those other life forms being located on Mars _and_ having the appearance of Marvin the Martian being so improbable as to be impossible, as Bozer and Riley glanced at one another and snorted in laughter.

They grew sombre as they caught the expression on Matty's face. She looked even more serious than she usually did at their mission briefings, and they all snapped to the closest to attention they ever had at the Phoenix, Mac reaching for a paperclip from the bowl as usual. Matty regarded them for a millisecond, before reaching up and tapping the big screen.

An image of a family of four, laughing and smiling on a beach, appeared. A man and a woman aged in their mid-forties, he with his arm around her shoulders. The woman had a little girl of about four or five nestled into her side, while an older boy of about twelve or thirteen was eagerly building a sandcastle with the 'help' of his little sister.

A feeling of dread grew in Mac's belly, and he knew without looking at them that the same feeling was rising in Jack, Bozer and Riley.

There was only one reason for Matty to show them this photo.

 _And it's not 'cause we're getting a lesson in being a happy family._

She tapped the screen again, and the photo changed to a formal photo of the man, dressed in full military dress uniform.

'This is Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Walters. Stationed at Camp Pendleton until two months ago when he was transferred to the Pentagon into a position above all of your security clearances.' Jack let out a low whistle. They had very high security clearances. Not many people outside really covert covert ops had higher. 'He left his wife Miriam and their children Noah and Grace in LA. They were supposed to make the move to D.C. to join him in three months.' Matty paused, as Mac swallowed, the paperclip in his hands now finally beginning to take a definite shape. 'An hour and a half ago, they disappeared on their way home from school. Thirty minutes ago, Lieutenant-Colonel Walters received an untraceable phone call, demanding classified intelligence in exchange for his family.'

Jack sucked in a breath, and the four agents exchanged a glance, before Jack spoke.

'And we all know that the US government doesn't negotiate with terrorists.' He cracked his knuckles. 'How long we got, boss?'

 _As everyone knows, the US government does not negotiate with terrorists._

 _That aside, Lieutenant-Colonel Walters cannot give up that intel, because if he does, people will die. American soldiers. Allied soldiers. Civilians, maybe._

 _But if he doesn't, his family will die._

 _This is a problem. A terrible problem. A Sophie's Choice._

 _There's only one solution to this._

 _Only one that we'll consider._

 _Today's mission isn't about the big picture or even taking down the bad guys._

 _No, today's mission is a rescue mission, plain and simple._

Matty tapped the screen and a countdown clock appeared.

'The kidnappers gave him twenty-four hours.' She tapped the screen again, and a very limited intel briefing appeared. Everything they had on the kidnapping, which wasn't much, to say the least. 'The Lieutenant-Colonel is on his way to the Phoenix…'

Mac tossed the hourglass-shaped paperclip onto the coffee table as he quickly read the briefing, brain going at a thousand miles an hour.

They had twenty-three hours and twenty-eight minutes left.

* * *

Twenty-four minutes later, Riley slumped back in her seat, dejected and frustrated. She motioned to her laptop, as Mac, Jack, Matty and Bozer, going through what sparse intel they had, looked up at her.

She gestured to her laptop.

'Guys, it really is untraceable. I can't trace that call.'

Bozer looked astounded for a second, as did Jack, before their expressions melted away into concern, as Matty and Mac exchanged a glance.

If Riley couldn't trace it, no one could.

There went their only lead.

 _Twenty-three hours, twenty-two minutes._

* * *

 **NOAH AND GRACE WALTERS' ELEMENTARY SCHOOL**

 **LA**

* * *

Riley, with her hair in a messy bun, wearing black-framed glasses and a dress shirt and dark-wash jeans, walked into the school reception, a messenger bag over her shoulder.

She greeted the receptionist, who was just packing up her handbag and appeared to be about to leave.

'Hi, I'm Rachel from Geeks2U. I was called to fix an issue with your network?'

The issue had been caused by Riley herself, but she didn't need to know that.

The woman looked very, very relieved, and gestured towards her computer.

'Oh, thank God. Every computer just stopped working suddenly, and…' She made a helpless, slightly frazzled gesture. 'Do you need, uh, access to the other computers or…?'

Riley smiled reassuringly and confidently at her, moving to sit behind the receptionist's desk.

'I'm pretty sure I can handle it from here.'

The woman smiled gratefully at her, as her phone in her handbag rang. She pulled it out, looking apologetic.

'I'm so sorry, I have to take this…it's my son…'

Riley smiled at her as the receptionist made to duck outside.

'No problem, I should have this fixed in a few minutes…'

The receptionist looked a bit doubtful, but ducked out anyway, as Riley, a far more serious look crossing her face, got to work.

There probably wasn't anything in the school's network or CCTV, since the Walters had been taken two miles from the school, but it couldn't hurt to check.

Especially since they had no leads.

 _Twenty-two hours, forty-eight minutes._

* * *

Two miles down the road, Mac and Jack, dressed as workmen from the local power company (disguises were essential; they knew full well that they were dealing with pros, and they might be monitoring the area for people like them), searched the area where Miriam Walters' cell phone signal had disappeared.

It was a testament to how serious they both knew this was, how urgent, that Jack barely fooled around with the cherry-picker he was on.

Though, being Jack, when he saw his partner look up from where he was examining the sides of an electricity pole, looking like his thoughts were far too dark, he pasted a silly grin on his face that he didn't feel and pointed up to the top of a tall tree.

'Hey, brother, reckon I could touch the top?'

He pressed the button on the cherry-picker that would raise the carriage. Mac, clearly recognizing Jack's effort for what it was, returned it by looking up, examining the cherry-picker, Jack and the tree for a second, before rolling his eyes and speaking.

'Nope. You're gonna fall about five feet short.'

'Did you take into account my awesome vertical leap?'

Mac snorted.

'A, your vertical leap, while above average, is still in the eightieth percentile; I doubt that qualifies as _awesome_. B, yes, of course I did, and C, you're _still_ going to fall short.'

(Mac was right.)

(But so was Jack.)

(The blonde returned to his search, mood a touch lighter, thoughts a touch calmer.)

 _Twenty-two hours, thirty-seven minutes._

* * *

In the Phoenix van (disguised as a vehicle from the local electricity company), two hundred yards from Mac and Jack, Bozer pored over all the local traffic cam footage in conjunction with Jill back at the Phoenix.

As they finished the last of the cameras in a one-mile radius, he exchanged a glance with the forensic analyst on his left-hand side monitor.

A very grim look.

They knew the further out they got, the less likely it would be that they'd find anything.

After a moment, Jill spoke.

'Sending you half the footage between one and two miles now.'

Bozer nodded.

But that didn't mean they would give up.

They _couldn't_ give up.

 _Twenty-two hours, thirty-one minutes._

* * *

Riley's brow furrowed as she caught sight of a man wearing coveralls (barely – he had almost managed to evade the camera completely), identical to those of the school's maintenance man.

The time stamp showed that it was six days ago, at 5:30 PM, well after the end of the school day, and well after the time that the receptionist left.

The school would have been deserted, as the cleaners weren't due for another hour and there were no after-school activities on Wednesdays.

It wasn't weird in the slightest that the maintenance man was walking around at that time. It was a good time to fix a broken gutter or trim some trees, after all.

Except for the fact that that day, the maintenance man had left early (relatively speaking, anyway) in order to attend his daughter's ballet recital.

With a renewed surge of energy and motivation, Riley searched all the other cameras in the school for that day and time.

She came up with only one other still, which only showed half of his body anyway.

This guy was good.

Really, really good.

She had the left third of his body, from the back. No hope of getting his face, or even his hair colour, with the baseball cap he was wearing.

The image was blurry as hell, as well.

But he was holding something in his hand. Brow furrowing, Riley zoomed in on it.

It looked like a label of some sort, partially obscured by his hand.

Riley leaned back a little, her fingernails clacking even faster on her keyboard as she started running one of her image-enhancing programs.

She could do better than 'red label'.

She _had_ to.

 _Twenty-two hours, twenty-one minutes._

* * *

Something caught Mac's eye among the green grass.

Something that didn't belong.

He crouched down, looking more closely, then pulled out his Swiss Army knife and took out the tweezers. Carefully, he picked up the fibres that'd caught his eye and examined them, taking into account the colour, apparent texture and the way that the fibres were entangled.

He pulled out a small plastic bag from the pocket of his coveralls, and put the fibres inside, before carefully prising one free, taking it out and rubbing it between his fingers.

Then, he went over to the cherry-picker and started unscrewing a panel on the base.

'Brother, what are you…' Jack groaned. 'I have a bad feeling about this…'

As Jack finished speaking, Mac pulled out a wire, cut it one-handed and used it to light the rope fibre on fire.

He watched for a moment, sniffing the air, and then nodded, pulling out his phone and calling Riley.

Jack, meanwhile, pressed the buttons on the cherry-picker to get himself down. Nothing happened.

'Riley, you said the label's red, right?' She presumably answered in the affirmative, as Mac nodded. 'Is there the word Teufelberger on it anywhere?' She presumably said that it was possible (the image was _really_ blurry, and Riley's programs were good, but not magic), because Mac nodded in satisfaction and started muttering to himself under his breath. 'Assuming most efficient binding and knotting…taking into account their heights and assuming standard proportions…' His voice rose in volume again. 'Riley, Jill, Boze, start screening all purchases of at least twenty-five feet of Teufelberger Safety Pro-12 rope in LA in the last two weeks...'

Jack didn't need to ask why his partner knew so damn much about rope.

Mac was _Mac_. Enough said.

(There'd probably been a whole series of extensive experiments on all commonly-available rope brands and types in the country.)

But what he did need to ask was…

'Brother, you gonna get me down or am I gonna have to jump?'

Mac, who'd just hung up, seemed to realize that he'd left Jack stranded, looking a bit sheepish.

'Uh, sorry, Jack.' He glanced at the exposed wiring and the cut wire hanging out of the bottom of the cherry-picker. 'Umm…give me a minute.'

 _Twenty-two hours, eight minutes._

* * *

In the back of the van, Bozer and Riley exchanged a glance, along with Jill on the left-hand-side monitor.

There had been 346 purchases of twenty-five feet or more of Teufelberger Safety Pro-12 rope in Greater LA in the last two weeks.

(It was really popular, apparently.)

Simultaneously, Jill and Riley started typing vigorously, diverting more of their CPU power to the algorithm they had screening all the purchases.

 _Twenty-one hours, fifty-four minutes._

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Matty strode into the war room, which was occupied by Lieutenant-Colonel Walters, in civilian clothing and looking very anxious, pained and guilty. He was staring at Mac's bowl of paperclips as he paced along the length of the room.

(It'd taken a while to get him to the Phoenix, as they had to essentially smuggle him away from his post, in case he was being watched.)

Her expression softened in sympathy.

'Our best team is on it. They will do anything to bring your family home safe.'

She didn't use _sir_ or _Lieutenant-Colonel._

Right now, he wasn't a leading military analyst and strategist.

He was just a man whose family was in danger and powerless to do anything about it.

He looked up at her, collapsing into the nearest armchair, rubbing his face with his hands for a moment, before looking back up again, though not directly at her.

'They're…they're my _family_.' He snorted sardonically. 'You could have the whole FBI searching for them, and I'd still be out of my mind with worry…'

Matty sat down on the coffee table opposite him with a little smile.

'Oh, they're better than the FBI.' Her expression grew serious, but also a touch softer. 'And I understand.'

She had no partner or children of her own.

Her job had required a lot of sacrifices. She knew it always would.

But even so, she _did_ have a family, and whenever they were in danger (which was, as a consequence of their jobs, often), she worried too.

 _Twenty-one hours, thirty-three minutes._

* * *

 **PHOENIX VAN**

 **RANDOM PARKING STRUCTURE**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'He's wearing a mask.' Bozer suddenly pointed at a man on the surveillance video that Riley had 'obtained' from one of the hardware stores that she and Jill had tracked one of the potentially-fishy rope purchases to. 'It's a really good one, but it's definitely a mask.'

The hacker turned to him, a little surprised, but trusting his expertise. Besides, they hadn't found anything else at all, and this was their last potential lead. She pulled up a new window and got ready to type.

'What would he need to make that?'

She could run some cross-referencing and elimination algorithms, hopefully get them a suspect.

Bozer started reeling off items, checking them off on his fingers.

 _Nineteen hours, twenty-seven minutes._

* * *

'They're cash transactions. All of them.'

It was a dead-end. Tracking cash transactions just couldn't be done.

Riley threw up her hands in frustration, as Mac and Jack (who'd also crowded into the back of the van) exchanged a worried glance.

It was Bozer who pursed his lips in thought, then pointed at his BFF.

'What about getting Jill to do some of that microbial forensics stuff?' They'd used that to track the cash during that Ones-to-Benjamin-Franklins case with Dawn, after all. He gestured to one of the screens showing footage from one of the shops that sold prosthesis supplies. 'I kinda, sorta know a guy who works there, I can get a sample…'

Mac and Jack exchanged another glance, some kind of silent conversation passing between them, before Jack grinned and clapped a hand on Bozer's shoulder, while Mac smiled, pulling out a paperclip absent-mindedly.

'It's a long shot…'

Jack's grin grew more wry.

'Our specialty!'

Mac reached out to bump his fist to his best friend's.

'Great work, Boze.'

 _Eighteen hours, fifty-four minutes._

* * *

 **ARTS AND CRAFTS SUPPLIES STORE**

 **LA**

* * *

'Thanks, man! I owe you one!'

Bozer's kinda-friend Patrick Wendell (whom he'd originally met as WizardofWendell) grinned at him and shot him a thumbs-up as he locked up the shop. (He'd stayed open an extra half an hour for Bozer.) The Phoenix agent (not that WizardofWendell knew that) raised the plastic bag containing some 'emergency supplies for his next big production', a sequel to _General Wang and the Martian Godzilla,_ as well as some swabs from the till (which WizardofWendell had no idea about either) and grinned back.

'I'll see you at Comic-Con!'

With a last wave and a grin, Bozer headed off, back towards the van.

They had to get these samples back to the Phoenix ASAP.

If there was anything unusual on that cash, Jill might just be able to pinpoint a potential location or two.

 _Seventeen hours, fifty-one minutes._

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

A slightly frantic and very worried-looking Jill gestured to the map on the screen behind her showing the Greater LA area with an eighth outlined in red as she bit her lip, flicking through several papers at once on her tablet.

'…That's the best I can do so far, but there has to be some more tests I can do, or another database I can cross-reference with…maybe if I move on to ATPases…'

She started muttering under her breath and only half out-loud about things that made Bozer, Riley, Jack and Matty exchange confused glances, as Mac (the only one in the room who understood what she was muttering about) reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.

'Hey…take a deep breath, Jill.' He waited until she'd done as told, before gesturing towards the map on the screen with his head. 'You've done a really good job; two hours ago, we had nothing. Now we've got something.'

Jill looked up slightly at him, and Mac smiled reassuringly at her. She took another deep breath, nodded and refocused.

'I think there's another test I can run, but it's a really, really long shot...'

Riley looked up from her laptop, picking up where Jill had left off.

'…We'll start running footage from the area; we'll narrow it down more if you get something.'

She and Bozer both started typing on their laptops, as Mac paced over to stand behind them to help review the footage, pulling a paperclip out of his pocket as Matty joined the trio in their task.

Meanwhile, Jack ducked out for the break room.

They needed coffee.

Lots of coffee.

It was going to be one of _those_ nights.

 _Fifteen hours, forty-three minutes._

* * *

'…Stop, there.'

Bozer reached out and pointed to a man on Riley's screen.

(Mac was watching another set of footage on Bozer's laptop, with Bozer watching over his and Riley's shoulders, since he had a better eye for detail and was the best – by far – at spotting disguises.)

The hacker turned a little to look at him.

'Wearing a prosthesis?'

Bozer nodded.

'Complicated one too. He couldn't just pull that off in an alley or something.'

Riley nodded and started typing, pulling up one of her facial recognition programs and narrowing the parameters to the time and place of the ATM camera footage that Bozer had spotted the masked man on.

(It would take way too long to search a large area, even with so much of the Phoenix's computing power at her disposal.)

(And time was _not_ on their side.)

 _Fourteen hours, twenty-four minutes._

* * *

Riley made a noise of frustration, pushing her wheelie chair (and consequently her) away from the desk a little, then throwing her hands up.

'I've lost him. Again.'

Mac, who'd gotten up and started mapping where the man in the mask was going on a large TV screen displaying a satellite image of northern LA (thankfully with the digital pen, instead of permanent marker like last time), pursed his lips for a second, before his face lit up with his _I-have-an-idea_ expression and he changed pen colours and began drawing lines all over the map, muttering about LA traffic under his breath.

Jack, meanwhile, started rattling off some directions to Riley. It'd been him who'd worked out how to find the guy the last time they'd lost him, using his AMOS skills.

Mac finally finished drawing his lines and then took a step back, crossing one arm across his body and placing the other hand under his chin for a moment as he thought, before nodding once decisively and turning to Riley and pointing, just as the hacker glanced over at Jack and shook her head.

(His AMOS predictions had come up empty this time.)

The blonde then pointed to the spot where all of his lines intersected, and Riley nodded, typing in the coordinates and pulling up all the available footage of that area.

They watched, half-holing their breaths, for a minute, before Bozer made a noise of triumph and pointed at the screen's top left corner.

'Awesome job, bro! We got him again!'

 _Thirteen hours, fifty-seven minutes._

* * *

Mac, Jack, Bozer, Riley, Matty and Jill all stared at the photo of a very, very normal-looking, if a little small, suburban house.

After three hours of searching, they'd _finally_ tracked the man to this address.

Presumably, it was a safehouse for whatever mysterious organization or group who'd kidnapped the Walters.

It looked so very _normal._

So very innocuous.

 _But we all know from experience that 'normal' and 'innocuous' can be anything but._

Matty pulled out her phone and dialled a familiar number.

'Gonzales? Be ready to bounce in fifteen.'

 _Twelve hours, thirty-nine minutes._

* * *

 **SAFEHOUSE OF THE MYSTERIOUS ORGANIZATION OF BAD GUYS**

 **(NOT** _ **THE**_ **ORGANIZATION)**

 **(AT LEAST, WE HOPE NOT)**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

 _Eleven hours, sixteen minutes._

* * *

Gonzales himself kicked down the front door, followed by three of his team, all four of them heavily armed with semi-automatics, followed by Riley, confidently holding one of Jack's back-ups at the ready, and Mac, who had a makeshift Taser he'd thrown together on the car ride here in his right hand.

* * *

One of the Phoenix's SWAT team's members kicked down the back door, allowing Jack to be the first man in, followed by three SWAT members, then Bozer (wielding the baseball bat kept in the secret compartment in the floor of the van that Mac had installed), and then another SWAT member.

* * *

'Clear!'

'Clear!'

'We're clear, boss!'

Jack swore, lowering his weapon, as Mac inhaled sharply, before refocusing and looking around. Something seemed to strike him, because he started muttering under his breath, before turning on his heel and walking back the way he'd come.

'…That wasn't right…'

Jack, Riley and Bozer exchanged a glance, before following, Jack motioning for a couple of Gonzales' men to follow them, while Gonzales' himself split the rest off to search the house systematically for any potential leads.

Mac had reached the front bedroom, and walked in with a purpose, stamping his feet with every step and listening to the sound, before making his way over to the closet, still muttering under his breath, eyes looking ever-so-slightly manic like they sometimes did, before flinging open the closet doors. He reached into the closet and rapped his knuckles on the back wall.

It rang hollow, and he pulled out his Swiss Army knife and started feeling along it.

Eventually, he made a noise of triumph and pressed lightly on the wall.

It popped open, revealing the practically-invisible seams.

Jack stepped forward, and without argument, Mac took a step back, letting the older man and Gonzales' men take the lead. Jack silently motioned to the nearest member of Gonzales' SWAT team, who prised open the secret door, and then he stepped through the door, weapon raised, and started heading down the set of stairs that were revealed.

Mac, Bozer and Riley shared a quick glance, before hurrying down the stairs after their three heavily-armed colleagues.

* * *

'Clear.'

Jack's voice was flat, but Mac, Bozer and Riley could all hear the tightly-leashed fury in there, protective and terrifying all at once.

Mac raised his head from where he was examining the shackles hammered into the wall…including a very small one, obviously meant for a child, that made him feel sick to the stomach and the blood in his veins burn with anger at the same time.

There were remnants of a couple of meals (apple cores and sandwich wrappers, mostly) and some clothing fibres caught in the walls, as well as a couple of traces of blood.

(Thankfully, small traces of blood, scrapes and scratches, no more.)

The blonde and his partner exchanged a silent conversation for a moment, before Jack swallowed, turned his gaze away for a beat, then looked back over at Mac, Bozer and Riley. He stared at them for a moment longer, his expression growing more set. More determined. Even fuller of that righteous fury, if that was possible.

'Toss this place.'

 _Eleven hours, one minute._

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Matty paused just outside the war room door, watching as Lieutenant-Colonel Walters raised his head from where it was lying in his hands, near his knees, as he perched on the edge of the couch. After a moment of silent contemplation, he got up and started pacing, completely ignoring the selection of foodstuffs on the coffee table in front of him, which included a hearty-looking quinoa and chicken salad in a Tupperware container (which she was quite sure was supposed to have been Beth's dinner, but had been donated to the cause), a small selection of chocolate bars and a packet of pretzels, as well as a bottle of water, one of Coke and one of apple juice.

She understood that look in his eyes.

A sad, sorry look crossed her face and with a deep breath, Matty opened the door. The Lieutenant-Colonel looked up at her instantly, and Matty had no option but to shake her head.

'No news, I'm sorry.' She paused. 'I just wanted to check on you.'

They stood there in silence, each looking into the other's eyes, for a beat. Matty was well aware that he knew exactly what she meant by checking in on him.

(She didn't like it, didn't like the fact that she essentially had to police one of their nation's finest, just in case he turned traitor for what she admitted, _knew,_ deep in her heart, were very good reasons.)

(But she had a job to do. The big picture to look after. National security to protect.)

(That was the price one paid for the corner office.)

He just nodded, once, and slumped back onto the couch. Matty nudged Beth's Tupperware container closer to him, then made for the door.

She understood why the Lieutenant-Colonel was tempted.

In her heart of hearts, she knew she'd be tempted too, in his situation.

(She would never, ever give in, but she _would_ be tempted.)

(And if it didn't go well, if there wasn't some near-miracle…then she'd regret it for the rest of her life. Terribly.)

(But she would never, ever give in.)

Matty didn't think that he would actually give in.

(And she couldn't allow it, had to prevent it. By any means necessary.)

But it gave her an idea.

 _Ten hours, twenty-one minutes._

* * *

'Jill?'

The blonde forensic analyst looked up from the mass spectrometer's computer, where she was processing the last of the data from the very last test she'd been able to run on the microbe samples Bozer had gotten from the arts and crafts store.

She was also drinking a very large can of energy drink.

'Yes, boss?'

'I need you to prep some false intel. It needs to be backstopped to the moon and back and at a level appropriate to Lieutenant-Colonel's security clearance and field of work. I've upped your security clearance so you can get access to some of his files.'

'To hand over to buy some time?'

Matty nodded, and the blonde sculled the rest of her can of energy drink, wiped her mouth and nodded in return, eyes very serious and with a sudden surge of energy that couldn't be (solely) attributed to her caffeine intake.

'On it.'

 _Ten hours, nine minutes._

* * *

 **SAFEHOUSE OF THE MYSTERIOUS ORGANIZATION OF BAD GUYS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

As Gonzales' team searched in a more conventional way, Bozer examined all the objects that Jack brought him (which were all the ones that seemed even potentially fishy or interesting) with a makeshift magnifying glass that Mac had put together using a couple of glasses, some duct-tape and a spoon. Beside him at the kitchen counter, Riley was neck-deep in the dark web, and sitting on the kitchen floor, Mac was rummaging through the trash, muttering about the decay rate of the average French fry and scribbling on a sheet of newspaper.

 _Eight hours, fifty-nine minutes._

* * *

Jack looked from Mac to Riley and back again.

'…You _sure_?' He raised his hands. 'Not that I'm doubting you…' They both snorted, because they were well aware that he was. '…but this is whacko, even for you, brother.'

Mac's trash analysis had been combined with some crime scene photos Riley had gotten from Boston PD's servers, then, after she'd trawled through the dark web and solved one of Sacramento PD's cases that they'd been stuck on for months, she'd re-emerged with this.

Mac and Riley glanced at each other, then back at Jack, both nodding firmly.

Jack nodded in acknowledgment, then pulled out his phone and dialled.

'Matty? We got something…'

 _Eight hours, thirty-six minutes._

* * *

 **MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISON**

 **SOMEWHERE IN THE BAY AREA**

* * *

Marc Jameson smirked as Matty strode into the interrogation room, and raised his hands as best as he could, considering that they were chained to the table.

He was the one man that Sacramento PD had managed to capture from his crew, who'd kidnapped the son of a Silicon Valley billionaire and successfully gotten a $10 million ransom from said billionaire.

He also hadn't talked.

In fact, Sacramento PD hadn't really known who they'd picked up at all, at least, not until Riley had found crucial evidence deep in the dark web, decrypted it, and solved the case.

'Oh, I'm _terrified_ , little lady.'

Matty took the insult in her stride, and just smirked right back at the man.

There was something so terrifying in there that she could practically _see_ him quail, even if it was just for a second, before he composed himself again.

He was good.

But she was better.

Her smirk widened, darkened, as she took a seat opposite him.

'Let's have a chat, Mr Jameson…'

 _Seven hours, twenty minutes._

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Matty strode out of the interrogation room, greeting the prison's warden, a grey-haired man with an impressive handlebar moustache. He glanced down at her, a wry look on his face, tucking his thumbs through his belt loops.

'You leave this one in few enough pieces we can put him back together again?'

Matty smiled up at him.

'You know I can work clean, Greg.' He chuckled, and she continued. 'And thank you.'

He tipped his hat to her, smiling.

'Eh, I still owe you a couple.' He paused. They knew each other well enough that he knew the indomitable Matilda Webber was at least a little worried. 'Good luck, Matilda.'

She nodded in acknowledgement and pulled out her phone to call her people…whoever they were.

 _Six hours, fifty-nine minutes._

* * *

 **SAFEHOUSE OF THE MYSTERIOUS ORGANIZATION OF BAD GUYS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…Come on, Ri, can't you type any faster?'

Mac, who was leaning on the table, looking over Riley's shoulder as she urgently (very, very urgently) ran down the list of addresses Matty had gotten them, shot his partner a _look._

He knew full well that Jack, who was pacing the room, clearly frustrated at his inactivity, was just concerned, worried, for the Walters, but still…

Riley, he knew, also got it, clearly biting back her snarky response and reigning in her temper, but still rolled her eyes.

Though, Mac noticed, after about twenty seconds of thinking, she did a little something (he wasn't quite sure _what,_ but he at least got what the outcome was) to increase the processing power and hence speed of her rig.

 _Six hours, sixteen minutes._

* * *

'Got it.'

Instantly, Jack and Mac, who were talking quietly in the corner, and Gonzales, who'd been conferring with his second-in-command in another corner, made their way over to the hacker sitting at the dining table in front of her laptop. Riley's voice was triumphant, but it was a clipped triumph, underscored by the urgency that they all felt.

They were running out of time, and they knew it.

Wordlessly, Riley brought up a satellite image of an innocuous-looking suburban house on the other side of LA.

 _They always look innocuous._

 _They'd be terrible safehouses if they weren't._

The three men exchanged a glance, as she brought up more and more imagery, already running a program she had to identify any security features.

Their expert eyes had already spotted several challenges.

 _But they usually only look innocuous._

 _And this one is no exception._

 _Far from it._

 _Six hours, two minutes._

* * *

 **TWO BLOCKS FROM THE SAFEHOUSE**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Exchanging a glance with Jack, who was dressed in full tac gear, Mac, wearing black-framed camera glasses and a baseball cap, having ditched his leather jacket, finished packing the device he'd built to disable most of the bad guys' electrically-powered defence systems, hopefully without them noticing, into the stroller that they'd 'borrowed', completing the disguise with a baby doll wrapped in blankets.

He lifted the stroller out of the back of the van, and Jack called out to him as he finished stowing the back-up to his back-up.

'Be careful, brother.'

Mac would be on his own. They could not risk the bad guys smelling a rat, and alone, he was far less inconspicuous.

(He really, really did not look dangerous. Especially in the geeky glasses and with a stroller.)

Mac just gave a little smirk, but it didn't quite reach his eyes, which had something softer, affectionate, grateful in there, as well as an urgent sense of worry, of concern.

'I'm always careful.'

Jack snorted, and glanced at Bozer, Riley and Gonzales, gesturing as if to say, _see what I have to put up with?_

Mac shook his head and set off, pushing the stroller, beginning to tell a story about Archimedes (his childhood dog, not the Ancient Greek scientist) to the plastic baby, looking for all the world a young father taking his kid out for some fresh air.

 _This has got to work._

 _Five hours, twenty-four minutes._

* * *

 **BAD GUYS' SAFEHOUSE**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

In the backyard of a house two doors down (the owners, Riley had found out, were in Hawaii, and hopefully they'd never realize he was there…as long as the scorch mark wasn't too big…), Mac lit the fuse to the rather rocket-like object he'd put together from some old PVC pipe and various household cleaning products and a couple other odds and ends.

He made eye contact with Bozer, who was on the other side of the yard, having served as Mac's assistant, gesturing insistently with his head, and Bozer took off running, back towards the van (he was coordinating the assault), while Mac headed the other way, leaping the fence and running through the backyard directly next to the bad guys' safehouse, where he met Jack and a few of Gonzales' team on the edge near the safehouse.

(Handily, the inhabitants of this house were visiting relatives in Maine.)

Jack and the SWAT team looked up as Mac's makeshift rocket (designed to resemble an RPG in noise and appearance, but not quite in damage) launched and flew over their heads, and then, just a second before it made impact, the first commando leapt the fence, followed by the second, then the third, the fourth and then Jack.

Mac, meanwhile, jumped the fence to get into the backyard of the house on the next street, one across and one behind the bad guys' safehouse, before immediately jumping another fence to get into the backyard of the house directly behind the bad guys' one.

(Those owners were in Australia. Clearly, the bad guys had chosen their safehouse well.)

He met Riley, who was wearing a bullet-proof vest and carrying one of Jack's back-ups, in that yard, and together, as Jack and Gonzales and his team, aided by Bozer, caused a massive distraction, they slipped into the bad guys' yard.

They had a very specific mission.

The most important mission of all.

 _Four hours, forty-nine minutes._

* * *

Mac managed to get the last door in the hallway open (every single door in this house was locked – these guys clearly knew what they were doing), just as Riley finished stuffing the unconscious baddie into the nearest closet.

It was empty.

He swore, and turned to Riley and shook his head.

The hacker's expression grew grimmer.

The plan had been for Mac and Riley to remain as undetected as possible and find and free the Walters, while Jack, Gonzales and his team, aided by Bozer, kept the bad guys busy.

(They'd been counting on the fact that the Walters were far too valuable to simply kill, plus the fact that their assault was substantial enough that a quick, clean getaway – which would require _disposing_ of the hostages – just wasn't possible.)

But they'd searched almost half the house, and found no signs of the family.

 _What if they're not here?_

 _What if they're already…_

Mac pushed that thought aside firmly.

He couldn't afford to think about it right now.

He gestured to Riley hurriedly, and crossed the bedroom he'd just unlocked, going to the window and opening it as wide as it could go.

He'd seen a handily-placed drainpipe that'd let them get to the next floor without going through the stairs, which were doubtlessly occupied by Jack handing out knuckle sandwiches at the moment.

* * *

 _It's a universally acknowledged truth that when it can go wrong, it does go wrong._

 _Yes, I know._

 _Murphy's Law and Pride and Prejudice don't exactly go hand-in-hand, but it is true._

* * *

Mac and Riley stood on the edge of the 2nd floor landing, Gonzales behind them. Jack stood at the top of the stairs, with two of Gonzales' team behind him.

All five armed Phoenix agents had their guns affixed to the three bad guys standing in the middle of the 2nd floor landing.

The three bad guys had the muzzles of their guns firmly on the sides of the heads of Miriam Walters, Noah Walters and Grace Walters, their left arms wrapped firmly around their necks.

All three of them looked terrified. Grace had tears running down her cheeks, and Noah seemed to be trying very hard not to let his own tears fall (he was mostly succeeding), and their mother was red-eyed.

The presumed leader of the team who'd kidnapped them, a man with a face rather like a ferret's and cold, dark eyes that reminded Mac a little too much of Murdoc's, smirked darkly at Jack.

'Now, you're going to let us go, or…'

He pressed the gun a little harder into Miriam Walters' head.

Jack faced him down, tightly-leashed anger in his eyes, and, Mac and Riley could tell, no small amount of worry. Of fear.

(Though they both knew that there was no way the baddies would recognize that. Only those who knew Jack like they knew him would be able to tell.)

'Let 'em go, and we'll let you go.'

(He wasn't authorized to do that.)

(Oversight would probably be furious.)

(But Jack didn't care.)

(And he knew Matty would do everything she could to back him up.)

The man laughed. It was a dark, chilling sound.

'Oh, like it'd be that easy…' He looked back at Jack. 'You let all of us go…including Mrs Walters and her lovely little rugrats. No tailing. No cheating.'

'You know I can't let you do that.'

The man smirked, even more darkly than his laugh.

'Well, then we have reached an impasse…' He tightened his grip on the trigger, ever-so-slightly. '…You leave me with no choice…'

Miriam Walters sought out her children's eyes, her voice surprisingly strong and clear.

'Noah, Gracie, close your eyes. Close them tight…it's going to be alright, Mommy promises, Gracie, it's going to be-'

And without warning, she very quickly drove her foot into the side of the knee of the man holding her, elbowing him just as hard in the stomach at the same time.

Six gunshots rang out.

* * *

The three bad guys fell to the floor with three _thumps_ , all clearly dead, each with a bullet hole cleanly through their foreheads.

There was a fourth bullet lodged in the wooden railing of the landing.

And bullets five and six were lodged in Miriam Walters' abdomen.

(She'd bought them that crucial second, provided them that crucial distraction, needed to take out the kidnappers…but at what price?)

'Mommy? Can we open our eyes now?'

Grace had brought her hands up to cover her ears when the shots had rung out and the man holding her had gone limp, and now shifted them to cover her eyes.

Noah had opened his when the shots were fired, and was now staring at his mother, lying on the floor, shirt rapidly growing saturated with blood, seemingly in shock.

Miriam Walters turned her head a little to face her son, gesturing weakly towards her daughter, and Noah snapped out of it, swallowing and nodding and going to his sister, putting an arm around her shoulders.

Gonzales made his way over to the two kids, crouching down to Grace's level and talking to them in a low, calming voice, while Mac rushed over to Miriam's side, calling out orders (unmistakeably orders, too – his voice made it clear that there was absolutely no time to ask him what in the world he was doing).

'Riley, I need all the sheets from that bedroom we just checked, Jack, second door down the left hallway's a bathroom, I need absolutely everything in there…'

* * *

Bozer brought the van to a screeching stop in front of the safehouse, as Mac, Jack and Anita, Gonzales' team's medic, formerly of the US Navy, brought Miriam out of the front door, Anita keeping pressure on the wounds, Mac and Jack carrying a makeshift stretcher that appeared to be a door. Riley was with them, talking into her phone rapidly and holding Anita's first-aid kit.

He hopped out to help them get Miriam into the back of the van, and as Mac and Anita got her settled as best as they could, Jack ran to the driver's seat and got in, turning on the ignition (Bozer had left the keys in), while Riley hopped into the passenger seat.

Mac looked up very briefly at his best friend.

'Boze…'

'Kiddos. Got it, bro.'

He closed the van doors, as Jack floored the accelerator.

Bozer watched them go, sending a little prayer up to whoever might be listening up there that Miriam Walters would be alright.

* * *

 **PHOENIX VAN**

 **BREAKING THE SPEED LIMIT**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

As they sped through suburbia as fast as Jack dared (he didn't want to be pulled over, and at a certain speed, controlling the van became nigh impossible), the former CIA agent called out to his partner.

'Where to, brother?'

Mac did not even pause in helping Anita pack more gauze into Miriam's wounds. She was barely conscious and still losing far too much blood…

'Phoenix! It's the closest medical centre with the right facilities, given current traffic patterns…and it's secure; we don't know if we actually got all the guys or not!' Mac exchanged a glance with Anita, as Riley quickly dialled the infirmary's direct line. 'And _faster_ , Jack!'

He didn't need to be told twice and floored the accelerator.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

As Miriam Walters was transported through the Phoenix on a proper stretcher, accompanied by Max the surgical nurse, Beth and Anita, who were having a very rapid, medical-lingo-filled conversation as Max monitored Miriam's vitals, and trailed by Mac (whose clothes were covered in blood), Jack and Riley, Jonathan Walters started forward, but Matty, gently but firmly, reached out and caught his arm.

The man looked back at her, angry, even a little confused, for a moment, and Matty spoke, her voice gentle, even kind, but definitely firm.

'You'll get in the way.' He stared at her for a long, long moment, then at Mac, Jack and Riley's retreating backs (Beth, Max, Anita and Miriam had long disappeared), then turned his head back to the Phoenix's Director. 'They're the best at what they do. Trust them to do their job.'

He took a long, deep breath. Then another. And then, he nodded.

Matty let go of his arm, and then started walking down the corridor at a slow pace.

(Sure, she had much shorter legs than anyone else at the Phoenix. But she could keep pace with the big boys, in more ways than one.)

(But Jonathan Walters didn't need to know that right now.)

'Come on, I'll take you down to the infirmary.'

(She'd take the long way.)

* * *

Mac had very little recollection of arriving in the infirmary and just sort-of standing there for a moment, as Miriam was wheeled into the OR where Dr Farnham and a couple of assistants were scrubbed in and ready, waiting for Beth to brief them.

He absolutely didn't notice Jack and Riley exchange a very concerned look behind his back.

He hardly felt their hands on him as they pulled him to one side, sat him down on a spare infirmary bed.

He sat there for almost ten minutes, not that he could have told you that, silent as a tomb.

Jack and Riley, sitting on either side of him, exchanged several more worried glances.

Those went unnoticed too.

There was absolutely nothing in him left to protest when Beth emerged from the OR, picked up a neat stack of his clothes (clearly taken from his locker) already packed in a clean plastic medical waste bag and handed him the bag, before pointing firmly to the showers.

In fact, it was like it was happening in a dream.

Mac's brain was far, far too busy to pay attention to what was happening around him.

Far, far too busy.

* * *

 _There are 4.7 to 5.5 litres of blood in the average adult human body…the viscosity of blood is…._

 _The Law of Large Numbers states that as the number of experiments or trials performed approaches infinity, the mean approaches the expected value…_

… _Including the basement, there were 13 rooms in that house…bullet trajectories are linear with a potential deviation of…deflection…the volume of the left atrium is…_

In the shower, Mac gave a groan of frustration and anger (at the bad guys, at chance…and at himself) and beat his fist against the tile several times, which, as he should know by now, did not make him feel any better or slow the torrent of thoughts in his brain ( _you should have done better, worked it out faster, checked there first, you could have done better, and now she might die, Noah and Grace might be half-orphans, because you didn't do better…)._ Taking a few deep breaths, he leaned his forehead against the tiles instead.

The relative coolness of them, compared to the hot water running over him ( _the thermal conductivity of ceramic tiles varies from 0.6 to 1.7 Watts per metre per Kelvin…)_ felt nice, at least.

He stayed there, still save for his breathing, which was still a little faster than normal, for a few beats, until his heartbeat and his breathing returned to more or less normal.

Then, with a sigh, Mac reached out and turned off the water.

* * *

Jack was waiting for him, just outside.

Of course he was.

The older man just reached out and clapped the younger one on the shoulder, seeking out his eyes.

'You did your best, son. That's all that anyone can ask of you.' Jack paused, squeezing Mac's shoulder, and then gestured towards the door, vaguely in the direction of the infirmary. 'Now they're doing their best, and you well know in that too-big brain of yours that that's all you or Lieutenant-Colonel Walters and Noah and Gracie or anyone else can ever ask.'

Mac stared at him for a long moment, processing, then gave a little nod (he didn't look _happy_ , but his expression had at least lost some of that guilt and deep-seated melancholy and _what if I…_ ), and clapped Jack on the shoulder back in thanks.

* * *

The partners slipped back into the infirmary, to find the OR still occupied and Beth's little office converted into a waiting room of sorts, since the infirmary didn't really have one.

(Agents usually made do with whatever free space there was, but clearly, the doctor had thought that the Walters family might like a little bit more privacy, or at least as much privacy as the half-frosted glass wall that divided her little office from the infirmary provided.)

Exchanging a glance, Mac and Jack made their way to just outside the doorway of the makeshift waiting room, finding Jonathan Walters sitting on a chair behind Beth's desk, his son next to him, sporting several Band-Aids and wrapped in a blanket, leaning on his father's shoulder, while his daughter was on his other side, his arm around her shoulders. Beth was just cleaning the last of her various scrapes (this one a particularly nasty-looking one around her right wrist, obviously rope burn).

She finished her work and smiled at the little girl, who managed a tiny smile back and a very polite, but very quiet, _thank you, Dr Beth._

Smile widening a little bit, Beth pulled a snack-size packet of M&Ms out of her pocket and handed it to the girl, before giving her older brother one too.

Then, she got up, picked up a large cardboard box labelled 'sterile gauze' and slipped out of the room as Grace very kindly offered her dad some of her M&Ms, and motioned for Mac and Jack to follow. Wordlessly, Jack closed the door, and he and Mac and simply followed her a little ways away from the door, as she spoke.

'I'm going to make them some grilled cheese sandwiches, they, especially Gracie and Noah, could use the food.' She paused, and held out the cardboard box to Mac. 'Unfortunately, it might take a while to get them to eat, so, Mac, could you make me a heat lamp, please?'

The blonde peered into the box, and found her desk lamp, her stapler, a kidney dish full of paperclips, a roll of medical tape and several other odds and ends.

Jack hid a smile as he watched his partner's expression light up just a little bit, quickly cycling into his thinking-face, then his _I-have-an-idea_ face. He took the box from Beth, carried it over to an empty corner of the infirmary and sat down on the floor, unpacking it and getting to work, looking the most at peace that Jack had seen him for the last 24 hours.

Beth smiled, soft and fond, for a moment, before her expression shifted back into her focused, doctor-y look and she headed for the infirmary kitchenette to put together some grilled cheeses as Mac started taking her desk lamp apart.

Jack didn't even bother hiding his knowing smile this time.

* * *

Three and a half hours after Mac finished the heat lamp, Dr Farnham, still wearing his scrubs, walked out of the OR complex (it included a small recovery room) and headed towards Beth's office-turned-waiting room.

He knocked on the door and then entered.

Mac looked up from the kidney dish of paperclips he was continually shaping and re-shaping. Jack stopped trying to pretend he was playing _Candy Crush._ Bozer pulled off his headphones and paused _Keeping Up With the Kattarshians_ (cute kittens were a great remedy to the darkness of some of his days at the 'office'), while Riley put down her phone on which she'd been texting Billy and her mom (separately, of course) and Beth stopped filling out supply orders on her tablet.

A few seconds later, they saw Jonathan Walters jump up with a truly, deeply relieved smile on his face, and a few seconds after that, Dr Farnham walked out and smiled at the four agents and one doctor.

'She's awake and asking for them; she's going to be fine.'

Mac tossed the anvil-shaped paperclip he'd been holding into the kidney dish, suddenly feeling a little lighter, able to sit up a little straighter, as if a weight on his shoulders had lifted.

Jack glanced over at him, shook his head fondly, as if to say, _you gotta stop doing this to yourself, son,_ and then reached out and pulled him into a side-hug.

* * *

 **MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

The front door opened, and in stepped Jack, carrying several take-out bags (no-one felt like cooking, after the day they'd had), and followed by Diane.

Riley immediately got up from where she was sprawled out in the armchair in the living room, and practically tackled her mother into a hug. Diane simply hugged her back, just as tightly, pressing a kiss into her hair.

* * *

Two days later, on a date that the MacGyvers would never, ever forget (and that was without the near-eidetic memories that ran in the family), Bozer carefully fashioned a pie crust on the kitchen counter, while Beth carefully weighed out cinnamon in weigh-boats (clean, of course) which Mac had specially purchased for the occasion.

(They were attempting to re-create Ellen MacGyver's incredible apple pie. There'd been a secret ingredient – or ingredients – which she had never revealed to anyone, including her father and her husband, so it'd been lost on her death.)

(Many, many times over the years – usually around this time of year – Bozer had attempted to help his BFF re-create it, but it was never _quite_ right.)

(This year, Mac had invited his dad over to help. The tension between them always seemed to all-but-dissipate, somehow, when they shared their memories of his mom.)

(He'd also asked Beth, since she was a bit of a pie expert, it being her favourite food, and was, aside from Bozer, the only one of his friends who could actually bake a pie.)

(The less said about the time Jack and Riley had a pie-baking competition, the better.)

Meanwhile, the two MacGyvers stood at the kitchen island, on which 72 little bowls, half containing a small amount of apple pie filling, the other half not-yet-filled, sat in a grid pattern. There was a large piece of butcher paper taped to the island which specified the different spice combinations in each and every bowl. Mac and his dad each took a small spoonful from one of the filled bowls, chewed and swallowed, with near-identical expressions on their faces.

Then, they turned to each other, and spoke at the same time.

'It needs a touch more cinnamon.'

James MacGyver actually gave a little chuckle at that, something soft and gentle in his eyes, and, Bozer swore, his BFF practically _beamed._

As they moved on to the next bowl (which had an extra half a milligram of cinnamon in it), James spoke, something wistful, reminiscent, even _affectionate_ in his voice.

'You know, Angus, I tried 493 times to convince her to give me the secret…'

* * *

AN: Did you guys like that? I didn't quite intend for this episode to have so many parallels/recurring themes in it, but I'm pleased with how it turned out! I am, however, frustrated at how long this took me to write; I suspect that I'm finding writing so hard right now because I'm too tired. (Science is exhausting. I don't know how Mac does it.)

Zoe is my favourite canon love interest for Mac, and thus, I had to have that reflected in an ep! Similarly, after what happened with Mac and James in the last ep, I wanted to show a slightly more positive side to their relationship. _Keeping Up With the Kattarshians_ is a real TV show (I think it's from Iceland), and seemed to be the sort of thing that Bozer would watch as a bit of a guilty pleasure (like how I headcanon that Mac watches HGTV!). I seriously considered killing off Miriam Walters at the end there, but felt that everyone had suffered enough. (I think I like Mac-whump less than other people do; the poor guy suffers so much in canon that I feel somewhat obliged to give him a little more happiness in my fanfics…)

There's no episode tag for _Detours_ this week, but here's the press release for the next episode:

3.11, Aluminium Foil to Tinsel. Two days before Christmas, an earthquake strikes LA, and the entire Phoenix chips in to help their hometown. Jack and James MacGyver clear the air, Bozer, Riley and Jill team up, and Mac and Beth find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place, literally.

Come on, I couldn't not write a Christmas episode! Here's hoping I can write something that can at least aspire to live up to the show's Christmas eps…


	11. Aluminium Foil to Tinsel

AN: I managed to do this in one week and am so proud of myself for it! (I didn't grow any bacteria this week, so that's probably why I had the time/energy…)

* * *

 _I'll be home for Christmas, you can plan on me._

 _Please have snow and mistletoe, and presents on the tree…_

* * *

 **PRIVATE AIRSTRIP**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

 **FIVE DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS**

* * *

'…I'll be home for Christmas, you can plan on me!'

Jack flung his arms out dramatically as he sang loudly and with much gusto. Mac and Riley, walking beside him with their go-bags slung over their shoulders, just exchanged a very exasperated (it was really more annoyed) glance.

 _Of course we're glad to be home after a week away._

 _And of course we're glad that it's looking highly likely that we're going to be home for Christmas._

 _Thing is, it's a long flight from Ulaanbaatar to LA, and Jack's been singing Christmas carols the whole way._

 _And he's no Sinatra or Buble, trust me._

Just then, Mac's phone beeped, or rather, tinkled some jingle bells (he'd changed the text tone to help them all get into the holiday season mood), and he pulled it out to find that he had a text from Bozer.

His phone chimed again as he was holding it.

Make that two texts from Bozer.

Actually, three.

No, four.

* * *

 _Like just about everyone on this planet who celebrates Christmas, I would be very upset if it were ruined._

 _Or, as Bozer just put it, stolen by the Grinch. Which I suppose is the same thing, in the end._

 _Still, I think Boze is overreacting._

 _A tinsel shortage is hardly disastrous._

 _Besides, it's easily fixed._

 _I know for a fact we've got two jumbo rolls of aluminium foil at home._

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

 **FOUR DAYS TILL SANTA DAY!**

* * *

'That all you got, man?'

Jack lowered his boxing gloves a little as he and Bozer, sweaty and breathing hard (though nowhere near as hard as Bozer used to breathe when they sparred back when he was a _really_ newbie agent), circled one another in the ring.

Bozer just smirked right back at him over his gloves.

'Oh, you can't handle the whole B-O-Z-E-R!'

* * *

'…With this update, we've improved the encryption of all our communications…'

In the war room, Riley updated Matty on the latest patch she and several Phoenix white-hats had put together for their cybersecurity systems.

(It was a priority for the Phoenix, given the whole fiasco with Horn, Murdoc, The Organization and Jonah Walsh.)

The Phoenix's Director of Operations nodded approvingly as Riley pointed something out on the screen.

* * *

Mac and Beth exchanged a glance as the lab doors swished open and in strode Alex, who was sporting a rather substantial suntan, as well as brown hair dye.

Jill looked up from the mass spectrometer, and first grinned, soft and broad, before putting a hand on her hip and cocking it, raising an eyebrow, though the softness and the joy in her eyes didn't disappear.

'You're late.'

Alex just grinned at her, something similarly soft and happy in his eyes, and put up his hands.

'Sorry, honey, traffic was murder.'

Beth leaned over to press 'run' on the sequence that she, Mac and Jill had decided was optimal for their samples, while Mac picked up the Esky sitting on the table containing the remainder of the samples that hadn't been put into the mass spec, and quietly, the two of them slipped out of the lab to give the couple some privacy.

After all, the Edwards team had been in Tuvalu for the last two weeks.

* * *

The floor was shaking.

It was only slightly, at first, but Bozer was sure the floor was shaking. He could feel it, since he was flat on his back on the mat.

He said as much to Jack, who looked concerned.

'I didn't punch you _that_ hard, brother…'

He trailed off as the vibrations grew stronger.

Much stronger.

* * *

It started with the sample vials in the mass spec vibrating.

Then, seconds later, the mass spec itself started vibrating…as did everything else in the lab, the heavy lab benches included.

As the power cut out, Alex and Jill stumbled, unbalanced (to be fair, they'd been _very distracted_ when the tremors started…), before he caught his balance and leaned against the wall, pulling her against him to steady her.

(The Phoenix was extremely, extremely well-built, with all the latest in design and technology. It'd been found in extremely-thorough computer simulations to be able to withstand up to a 9.0 on the Richter scale.)

He gave a wry little smirk.

'I'm not _that_ good at making the Earth move…'

Despite the situation, Jill slapped him lightly across the chest for that.

* * *

As the earthquake finally came to an end, Mac and Beth stared at one another from the opposite walls of the darkened, stopped elevator.

(They'd instinctively grabbed on to the railings the moment it had jerked to a very sudden stop.)

He couldn't see very well because of the aforementioned darkness, but Mac was positive that there was something fearful in her eyes. Fearful in a way that was much darker, much more _lived_ and _experienced,_ than what'd been in there (briefly, thankfully) when they'd taken off in Alaska.

He really, really, really didn't like that look in her eyes, so smiled reassuringly.

'The genny'll kick in in a minute or two; we serviced it three weeks ago, it was in perfect working order.' He and a couple of Phoenix techs with engineering backgrounds had indeed serviced the generator. It was cheaper than hiring someone to do it and didn't have the whole risk-of-blowing-their-cover problem. He pointed at the ceiling, at the trapdoor in the elevator's ceiling. 'And if it doesn't, we can get out that way; if you sit on my shoulders, you'll be able to reach the catch easily.' His brow crinkled in thought. 'Though, prising open the doors will be harder; they're rated to withstand a small nuclear explosion…'

That made Beth give a wry, teasing little smile.

'Which we know, empirically, isn't beyond you.' His story about accidentally burning down Mission City High's football stadium had simultaneously horrified and intrigued her. She'd been very curious as to how he'd managed to cause a small nuclear meltdown in the first place. He gave a chuckle at that, smile morphing into a sheepish little smirk, and nodded, as she continued, tilting her head to the left slightly. 'Did Jack insist when the Phoenix was built?'

Jack tended to take John McClane's heroics as a bit of a blueprint.

'Yeah, loudly, repeatedly and obnoxiously.' He paused, looking, somehow, both sheepish and smug. 'Though they were reinforced last year after an incident in an Azerbaijani casino; talked Matty into doing it…'

* * *

The power was still out when Matty, looking remarkably unshaken, picked herself up off the floor and brushed herself off, then turned to Riley, who had managed to keep her rig safely balanced on her lap, and spoke.

'Riley, send out a Phoenix-wide email and start coordinating with emergency services…'

The lights flickered back on.

* * *

 **SIX BLOCKS FROM THE PHOENIX**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…Over there, please.'

Max the surgical nurse pointed to a corner of the large tent that the Phoenix medical staff had set up as a triage centre, and the firefighter nodded, helping the woman with her arm in a makeshift sling who was leaning heavily on him over to the indicated spot.

'…Beth, we've got suspected internal bleeding…'

Meanwhile, Anita, who'd just assessed a semi-conscious young man in a very rumpled, very dirty business suit, was briefing a very serious-looking Beth, just as Alex and Cal from Cartography entered the tent, carrying a couple of ventilators, which they proceeded to connect to a generator.

* * *

In another, smaller tent also provided by the Phoenix, Riley and Jill sat in front of their laptops, coordinating emergency services.

Almost all traffic cameras, CCTV cameras and ATM cameras in the city were down, but they'd launched several Phoenix drones to cover the local area.

'…Infrared's showing life signs at the corner of Regent and Keystone…'

'…Be careful, structural integrity appears questionable…'

Meanwhile, Matty was on the phone to…well, they actually had no idea and probably weren't going to find out anytime soon.

'…Of course, I understand that the politics is difficult, but we have people here who are dying, injured and have lost everything. Put your big boy pants on and man up!'

* * *

Underneath an awning that'd been set up in a local park, Bozer handed out water bottles and cereal bars to the dusty, shell-shocked or crying or hysterical people who were flocking to the area.

(It'd been designated a gathering point to reunite people with their loved ones and allow a survey to be taken as to exactly who was still missing.)

(Still trapped, perhaps or…Bozer shook his head. He didn't want to think about that.)

He offered a smile to a girl in her early teens who appeared to be alone, gesturing towards the tables at the centre of the room, where a couple of Phoenix analysts were working with local police to take down lists of names.

* * *

'…Got it!'

Mac wiggled his hand out from where he'd been placing a lightly-modified jack underneath a section of collapsed wall and shot his dad a thumbs up, standing up.

James MacGyver nodded, and started turning a large wheel, which moved two other wheels, which slowly raised the couple of jacks that Mac had placed under the wall to lift it vertically, as well as pulling it upright via the ice-pick-like thing embedded in it with an attached rope.

Mac jogged over to give his dad a hand with the wheel (it was heavy in itself, plus there was friction and the weight of the collapsed wall to account for), keeping both eyes on the slowly-rising wall.

A couple of minutes later, the wall was upright and lifted, and a couple of dust-covered people limped out from behind it. The MacGyvers held the wheel in place, holding up the wall, as first responders swarmed into the newly-exposed space.

A moment later, one of the firefighters emerged, carrying a middle-aged man with a badly-injured leg in a fireman's carry, followed by several of his colleagues supporting other limping office workers, and then a pair of paramedics carrying a stretcher with an unconscious woman on it.

* * *

Half-standing, bent over, in the crawl space underneath what had once been a childcare, Jack gently picked up a sobbing little girl of about three or four from the ruins of the floor. She quickly burrowed her head into his shoulder, and he rubbed her back soothingly.

'Shh, shh…it's okay, sweetie. You're safe now, I got you…'

He made his way over to the opening they'd drilled into the space, and gently disentangled the girl's hands from his shirt, lifting her up and passing her to the waiting policeman.

* * *

'MacGyver?'

A firefighter that Mac vaguely recognized from earlier, when he and his dad had lifted the wall, called out to him as he handed off the last of the kids who'd been trapped in their damaged school bus to a paramedic.

(It was a little tricky; the five- or six-year-old boy had burrowed his head into the crook of Mac's neck when the school bus had caught fire – a fallen power line had ignited the gas leaking from the bus – mere seconds after Mac had pulled him out of it.)

Mac nodded, and the firefighter held out his hand, even though his expression remained grim.

'Gabriel Marquez, Battalion 17, Station 106.' He pointed to a building across the road, which had questionable structural integrity to say the least. It was half-collapsed. 'We've got at least four people still trapped in there, but we can't work out how to get 'em out…'

He trailed off, and Mac just nodded, managing a little smile.

'Lead the way.'

Gabriel managed to smile back at him as he continued.

'All four are conscious, but two of 'em report what might be spinal injuries, we don't want to move them without a doctor looking over 'em first…'

Beth, who was well within earshot and had just finished checking over the last of the kids saved from the school bus (the girl was unhurt, save a couple of bruises, and just in shock), stood and re-shouldered her first-aid kit, walking over to the two men.

Mac shot her a look of concern (if being stuck in an elevator scared her more than flying, being in a small space under a collapsed building would be her worst nightmare, surely), but she just raised her chin, something fiercely determined in her eyes and held out a hand to Gabriel.

'Dr Beth Taylor, ER physician.' That fierce determination in her eyes grew a little stronger, which made Mac give a small smile, despite the situation. 'I'm small, relatively light and have experience working in unstable structures...'

Gabriel nodded, and motioned for the two Phoenix employees to follow him.

'…It looks like only the east side of the building gave way…'

* * *

On one of the laptop screens displaying feeds from the Phoenix drones, Matty spotted something that could be trouble.

Several figures, a couple wielding baseball bats, sneaking around a section of downtown that'd been largely evacuated.

She turned around to address the others in the temporary headquarters.

'We've got some looters.'

Jack, who'd been talking to a couple of the Phoenix techs piloting the drones (they had some blank spots that needed covering), and James MacGyver, who'd just walked in with a couple of police officers, deep in discussion, both looked up and spoke at the same time, Jack cracking his knuckles.

'I'll go have a nice chat with 'em, Matty. Hand out some knuckle sandwiches...'

'I'll deal with these ones, we may need to consider setting up patrols…'

They both trailed off, glancing at each other for a moment. Matty arched an eyebrow at the two of them.

Now was _not_ the time for the two of them to get into a pissing contest.

James finally spoke with a great deal of finality, leaving absolutely no room for argument.

'Dalton and I will deal with them.'

He turned and swept out of the tent, leaving Jack to follow him.

The former CIA agent rolled his eyes and gestured to Matty, as if to say, _seriously, who does this guy think he is?_

Matty just arched her eyebrow a little further ( _he's the big boss, Dalton, remember?)_ , and Jack jogged off after James with another eye-roll.

* * *

Bozer was just walking back towards the evacuation centre in the park with Cal from Cartography, leading a dozen evacuees from an office building four blocks away, when he heard something that sounded an awful lot like crying coming from a ruined café.

(It was really, really badly destroyed. Pretty much just a pile of large chunks of rubble. It surely had to have been one of the first buildings cleared, but he was positive that he'd heard crying – pitiful, high-pitched and weak, but crying nonetheless – coming from it.)

He motioned to Cal to continue leading the evacuees, and he himself headed towards the rubble of the café.

* * *

Bozer hauled a chunk of brick wall out of the way, listening carefully. He was positive, certain, now that he was hearing crying.

He paused and listened carefully for a beat, trying to pin down exactly where it was coming from, and headed further into the building, towards the left. He crouched down and hauled a couple more pieces of debris out of the way, revealing a table that was miraculously still standing, with several chairs surrounding it.

Bozer pulled a couple of the chairs out of the way, to reveal a baby wrapped in a blue blanket, still in his car seat and with his little face scrunched up, wailing.

(It appeared that this little boy was both very lucky and very unlucky. The table and the chairs – which appeared to have been shaken towards the table during the quake due to a very slight dip in the floor – had formed a protective cage around him, but he'd also not been found earlier because of it.)

The Phoenix agent reached out and picked up the baby, cradling him close to his chest.

'Hey, it's okay, little guy, I'll look after you. We'll find your mama and your papa…' Bozer trailed off as he noticed the large bloodstain on the floor next to the table. He swallowed and gently rocked the baby as he picked his way out of the collapsed café. '…I'll look after you, you're gonna be okay, kiddo…'

* * *

'Riley, we need your help!' Riley was taking a five minute break from coordinating emergency services, sipping water and chewing on a cereal bar, when Bozer rushed into the HQ tent…cradling a baby to his chest. 'I don't know where his parents are!'

She put up her hands.

'Hey, just 'cause I'm a woman does _not_ mean I automatically know how to take care of a baby!'

Bozer hefted his precious bundle up a little, and the boy burbled happily and raised a hand to touch Bozer's moustache. Bozer raised a hand as best as he could, as if to say, _I'm not saying you do!_ Riley couldn't help but give a little smile as the baby's fingers somehow managed to catch some of the hairs and give a sharp tug, making Bozer wince slightly, and sat down in front of her laptop again. She typed a message to Jill, who was on the other side of the tent, headphones with a microphone attached firmly on and focused on her laptop, causing the blonde woman to look up. She caught side of Riley, Bozer and the baby, and her eyes widened, then she waved and made an adorable face at the baby boy, before pulling off her headphones briefly and calling out to Riley.

'I've got this.'

Riley smiled at her as Jill returned to coordinating the first responders and volunteers, and then pulled up a new window on her laptop and turned to Bozer, who'd finally managed to disentangle the baby's fingers from his facial hair.

'Where'd you find him?'

* * *

Mac smiled as Gabriel and a couple of his colleagues helped three of the formerly-trapped office workers towards the exit that he (with their help) had created, the fourth worker being carried out by another two firefighters on a backboard.

(Beth had diagnosed him with a suspected spinal injury and broken ribs, so he had to be moved very carefully.)

He glanced down at the doctor, who was crouching on the floor, packing up her medical kit. She smiled back up at him, and stood.

She was about to shoulder her bag when the Earth started moving under their feet again, the vibrations growing stronger and stronger.

Acting on instinct, Mac grabbed her by the waist and threw both of them to the ground, rolling them under a conveniently-placed desk.

Around them, chunks of ceiling started to fall.

* * *

Objectively, Mac estimated that the aftershock had lasted about a minute.

However, it _felt_ like an eternity.

About two seconds after the Earth stilled again, he realized he was probably crushing Beth with his weight, and got up onto his hands and knees, his back brushing up against the desk.

He stared down at her, and she stared up at him, for a long, silent moment, both of them breathing hard, adrenaline still coursing through them.

 _Yeah, this is probably one of those moments._

 _You know, the ones from movies or TV shows. Or romance novels._

It didn't crackle with electricity or feel like a raging fire like how the romance novels described, though.

It was warm, but a comfortable, steady warmth that reminded Mac of a campfire. Or a nice fire for marshmallow-toasting in his fire-pit.

It was a pleasant sensation. A very pleasant sensation.

(He had probably reached the point where he had to admit to himself that he _liked_ her. Really liked her.)

(He was reasonably certain that she _liked_ him too, even if sometimes, she confusingly seemed to be trying to keep some distance.)

(Everyone else certainly seemed to think so.)

The moment was broken by Gabriel's voice, calling out to them, muffled by what they now realized was a brand-new wall of rubble between them and the exit.

Or, at least, what had been the exit.

'MacGyver? Dr Taylor?'

Mac turned his head and called back.

'We're okay, Gabriel!' He paused. 'Are you? And can you guys still get out?'

'Yeah, we're all fine. There's a couple of bits of rubble in the way, but it's clear.' His voice grew less clear, quieter, for a moment as he directed a couple of his fellow firefighters to start moving the rescued office workers out. 'The rest of the crew will get 'em out, I'll start clearing the rubble to get to you two-'

Mac had been scanning the rubble divider as best as he could, and shook his head and cut Gabriel off.

'No, don't!' He was pretty sure the pile of rubble was now holding up the ceiling and preventing it from collapsing onto them. 'The ceiling will collapse. Get everyone out of here, and then get a structural engineer and several heavy-duty jacks.'

Gabriel was quiet for a moment, before he responded.

'Alright, on it, MacGyver.' He paused again. 'Be careful, stay safe.'

Mac glanced down at Beth, who was taking slow, steady breaths, looking every bit the calm, unflappable ER doctor, very much in her doctor's headspace, before turning his head again to call out to the firefighter.

'We will.'

He listened to the sounds of Gabriel and the other firefighters evacuating the office workers for a moment, studying the rubble wall at the same time, trying to work out how a gap could be safely opened up in it.

His calculations were interrupted by Beth's voice and her tugging at his sleeve.

'Mac.' He looked down at her, to find that she'd shifted underneath him, closer towards the side further from the rubble wall. There was a look of concentration on her face. 'Did you hear that?'

He hadn't, but he listened carefully as the noises on the other side of the rubble divider faded away.

And there it was.

Shallow, rapid and laboured breathing. And was that a moan of pain?

Mac and Beth exchanged a glance, then both of them moved quickly, getting up from under the table, Mac pulling the flashlight from his belt to light the way and Beth picking up her medical kit.

They made their way quickly towards the source of the laboured breathing, stepping over the rubble and debris all over the floor.

At the very, very back of the space, half-concealed behind a large filing cabinet, they found a man who looked to be in his thirties, with extremely pale, clammy skin, breathing quickly and shallowly. Beth immediately knelt beside him, pulled out her stethoscope and unbuttoned his shirt, revealing the beginnings of severe bruising on his torso.

Meanwhile, Mac propped the flashlight up on the filing cabinet with a stapler and a stack of paper so she could see, and began moving furniture to provide them with some protection in case of another aftershock.

Three minutes later, Beth looked up, her expression very grim. Concerned.

'He's got severe hemothorax.'

Mac glanced between the very pale man who was drowning in his own blood and the rubble blocking their way out.

'I'll see if I can work out a way out-'

Beth shook her head and cut him off.

'You said yourself the ceiling will most likely cave in, and he's not going to survive long enough for us to get him out of here.' She pulled a pair of gloves out of her bag, put them on, then took out a vial of local anaesthetic and a syringe. 'Mac, I need a peristaltic pump and an open flame. Can you do it?'

As Beth injected the man with the anaesthetic, Mac glanced around, his brain going to a million miles a minute, coming up with ideas, discarding some instantly, and keeping others around for more evaluation. He got up and seized a clock from someone's desk and started taking it apart as one of the ideas, half-formed, crystallized out of the mess in his mind.

'Coming right up.'

* * *

As Mac, wearing gloves that'd been rubbed with antiseptic, put the finishing touches on the peristaltic pump and passed the end of the tube (re-purposed garden hose – fortunately, they were trapped in the offices of a landscaping/garden care company of some kind) through the open flame he'd jury-rigged using a jacked-up pair of lighters and some paperclips, Beth rubbed her gloved hands with more antiseptic, then rubbed antiseptic on the man's chest, in the area of his fifth and sixth ribs. Then, she sprayed antiseptic over her scalpel, passed it through the flame, took a deep breath, and made an incision.

* * *

Half an hour later, a very relieved look passed over Beth's face, and she gave a small smile, lifting her stethoscope off the still-unconscious man's chest. Mac looked up from where he was rigging together a homing beacon of sorts, in case Gabriel couldn't locate them again, as she spoke, discarding the gloves she was wearing and tossing them onto a pile where they joined the lightly-bloodied ones that Mac had been wearing and the much bloodier ones that she'd worn while performing the emergency thoracostomy.

'As far as I can tell without a CT scan, the bleeding has stopped; the cauterization was successful. He's stable.'

Mac let out the breath he'd been holding and smiled back at her.

'You were amazing.'

Her cheeks flushed a little at the praise, and she ducked her head slightly.

'That's just what I was trained to do…' She gestured towards the peristaltic pump system, complete with an underwater seal to prevent the drained blood and fluids from flowing back up into the man's chest cavity, that he'd put together from the stuff lying around the office. '…And so were you.'

* * *

As James drove his Jeep down the road, around abandoned vehicles, fallen trees and debris (Jack had deferred and let him drive – it _was_ his car, and he _was_ Jack's boss, and it turned out the guy was a far better driver than his son), Jack, leaning back in the passenger's seat, his hands cradling the back of his head, feet up on the dash, glanced over at him and spoke, faux-casually.

'Your boy sees the good in everyone and cares way more than he should. His pain tolerance's also crazy-high.' He paused, glancing over at James, who seemed just as cool and unflappable as he'd been all day. Was as a default, in Jack's experience. 'But you keep hurting him…well, we all know he ain't dumb, and he's gonna realize if he's looking for something that ain't there. He's as human as the rest of us, no matter what it might look like sometimes…so he's gonna break eventually.'

There were many, many things unspoken in there. Accusations.

(Mac would break eventually. And it'd be Jack there to pick up the pieces, not James MacGyver. Not Mac's own father.)

Jack really didn't even know _what_ to think about James.

The man was an asshole.

He was, as Mac had put it, emotionally distant and supremely convinced of his own intellectual superiority.

That had not really changed in the last few months, despite whatever progress (and sometimes, such as after that fishing trip that Mac didn't really talk about, _lack_ of progress) he and his son had made in that time.

But he was still Mac's dad. He only had one.

And clearly, his dad had meant something to him, even after being abandoned by him for years, or Mac wouldn't have spent so long, so much effort, obsessing over finding him.

And clearly, now that he'd found him, now that at least _some_ of his deception (Jack doubted that he'd ever reveal all his secrets, not by a long shot) was out in the open, clearly, he _still_ meant something to Mac.

As terribly as his father had treated him, part of Mac was still that little boy who idolized his dad, and he still wanted to try and rebuild their relationship.

Even if, half the time, Jack was convinced James was working to do the opposite.

Finally, after a long silence, James turned to the other man.

'You don't do subtle, do you, Dalton?'

Jack just grinned at him.

'Middle name's Wyatt, not subtle.'

For a moment, Jack swore that a toned-down but eerily-similar version of Mac's _you're-being-ridiculous, Jack_ look passed across his face, before it was gone and replaced by a much more serious expression.

'Angus is my son.' He paused. 'I've always done what I thought was best for him.'

Jack snorted, rather derisively.

'Yeah, and look where that's got you.' He crossed his arms, taking his feet off the dash and planting them in the footwell, shooting James a look. 'I know you don't wanna hear this, but you ain't always right, Mac-Daddy. In fact, from where I'm standing, you've been wrong when it really mattered.' Jack paused, let that sink in, as James MacGyver pulled the Jeep over half a block from where the looters had been last sighted and put it into park. Still, despite not having to focus on the road, he didn't turn to look at Jack, which made a little thread of rather irrational anger worm its way to the forefront of his brain. Jack pushed it away. 'And he's my partner. My job description is literally to watch his back. Protect him. From whatever or whoever might hurt him. Capische?'

At that, James finally did turn to look at Jack.

'You're threatening your boss?'

Jack waved a hand, with nonchalance that did not fool James in the slightest, especially given the serious tone of his voice.

'Nah, I wouldn't do that. I'm threatening the guy who might hurt my partner.'

Graciously, Jack left off the _even more_.

James stared at him for a moment, then gave a little nod and opened the car door, stepping out and beginning to examine the local area for any signs of the looters, effectively putting an end to the conversation.

Jack couldn't be sure (and wouldn't be convinced until he saw cold, hard evidence – Mac had been kinda right when he'd dramatically quit on the grounds of not being able to trust the man), but that little nod kinda felt like an understanding. A promise of sorts.

* * *

It didn't take very long for the two of them to find the gang of teens, even with the interruption of the aftershock.

After all, they were used to dealing with real, hardened criminals, not wannabes.

Though, that wasn't to say that they weren't bad guys.

After all, Jack thought, only bad guys would steal from others at a time like this.

Still, they were clearly amateurs.

They didn't even notice Jack and James come up behind them as they eagerly tossed the contents of a jewellery store into pillowcases.

With a glance at James, Jack cleared his throat, causing the teenagers to turn around quickly. James spoke.

'Put it back, boys.'

One or two of the boys hesitated, as if considering, but one of them, the one who clearly considered himself the leader, snorted and crossed his arms.

'Or what? Two old guys are gonna make us?'

His words galvanised the rest of the gang, who all broke into laughter as they kept shovelling jewellery into their pillowcases.

Jack and James exchanged a glance.

'Did he call us old, brother?'

'That _is_ what I heard.'

Jack cracked his knuckles, while James reached out for the pillowcase held by the nearest boy.

'Let me put that back.'

The boy snorted.

'You wish, old man!'

He lunged forward, intending to punch him, but James stepped out of the way easily and tugged the boy's arm to cause his momentum to make him fall onto his face.

That made several of the boy's companions make angry noises, and the boys' leader lunged at Jack, who simply stepped out of the way, then punched the guy in the jaw, causing him to drop to the floor like a sack of potatoes.

Everyone was still for a moment, and then, the remaining boys looked at each other, then at Jack and James, then, slowly, put their hands up.

* * *

It smelled _terrible._

In a corner of the HQ tent, Bozer stared down at the baby lying on the table in front of him on a blanket that someone had found for him.

(A couple of bottles, some formula, diapers and wet-wipes, as well as a couple of spare onesies, had somehow been scrounged up for the boy, from goodness-knows-where.)

Baby Doe smiled gummily up at his temporary caretaker, kicked his legs and then started crying, apparently uncomfortable.

Bozer didn't blame him.

The…stuff…in his diaper, if it felt even half as bad as it stunk, would be really, really uncomfortable to have there.

(Apparently, his bowels hadn't liked the aftershock.)

Bozer was not a coward.

He'd proven that, time and time again.

Still, he looked hopefully over at Riley and Jill, who were typing on their laptops ten feet away.

'Are you sure you can't give me a hand?'

'Nope.'

'Sorry, Bozer.'

'We're busy coordinating the relief effort.'

'And looking for Baby Doe's mommy and daddy.' At that moment, Alex walked in and smiled and waved at his girlfriend…who smirked, a little sheepishly and very mischievously. That smirk usually meant he was in trouble. Usually, it was the good kind of trouble. However, given the smell and the baby in Bozer's care…he was pretty sure this wasn't one of those occasions. Jill made eye contact with him, and gestured towards Bozer, then put a hand on her hip. 'But I'm sure Alex can help you out…'

He shook his head, shooting her a teasing look (he'd get her back for this later), and strode over to Bozer, who shrugged helplessly and apologetically at him as they examined Baby Doe.

'It can't be rocket science…'

Alex picked up one of the clean diapers, pulling off the packaging and examining the tabs.

'Rocket science is easy, anyway.'

* * *

 **FIFTEEN MINUTES AND HALF A BOX OF WET-WIPES LATER**

* * *

Alex and Bozer sank down into chairs on both side of the makeshift change-table, both decidedly smellier, exhausted and having seen things they had never wanted to see.

However, at least Baby Doe was finally into a clean diaper.

The baby boy burbled happily at them…then crinkled his nose as a very unpleasant smell filled the air again.

Alex and Bozer groaned.

* * *

Beth glanced around at the cracked walls, the lumps of rubble, the collapsed columns. She shifted uncomfortably, then turned her attention to staring at the drainage system attached to her patient, then to watching the rise and fall of his chest, reaching out absent-mindedly to check his pulse.

There was more of that deeply-seated, primal fear in her eyes from when they'd been stuck in the elevator earlier, Mac noted.

He also noted that despite that, this time, it seemed to be held more in check. He was completely certain that the unconscious hemothorax patient in her care was the reason for that.

 _Every single person at the Phoenix is dedicated to our jobs. Very, very dedicated._

 _And we're all capable of putting our own fears aside and stepping up when we need to._

 _Case in point – we have a germophobic, paranoid biological and chemical weapons expert._

Voice gentle, he spoke, as she pulled back from checking her patient's pulse, gesturing around them.

'Brings back bad memories? Or the stuff of nightmares?'

Somewhere between their experience in the elevator and now, the _why_ she disliked being stuck in small spaces had clicked into place, even if it hadn't been consciously realized until he spoke.

Beth swallowed, staring at the wall, into the distance. Into the past, into her memories, before speaking, voice small, sad.

'The thing about double-taps is that they're not clear or predictable. There's no set amount of time to wait or some kind of protocol or…well, sometimes they wait for hours…or they wait until the first responders or the mourners or the neighbours show up.' She swallowed. 'Sometimes, we couldn't wait to help.' Seemingly without thinking about it, she brought her knees up, wrapped her arms around her legs, which made her look very, very young. 'There was a family living in a single room of what used to be a very expensive house. A compound, really. Mom, dad, three kids, grandma.' She swallowed again, still lost in the past. 'Grandma and two of the kids had died in the first strike. By the time I got there, I couldn't do anything for Dad and the third child…but the shock had caused the mother to go into labour at 7 ½ months.' She hadn't been able to move the woman far; between her grief and the contractions, she couldn't really walk, and she'd been taller and heavier than Beth. The best she'd been able to do at the time was shift them into the sturdiest-looking corner of the room and move what little furniture there was to hopefully (probably overly-optimistically) shield them. '…Fifteen minutes later, the second strike hit.' She raised a hand, touching her forehead, near her hairline, unconsciously. Mac understood the gesture; there was no physical scar, as far as he could tell, but that didn't mean there were _no_ scars. Then, she seemed to snap out of it, looking apologetic, a little uncomfortable, even, perhaps, a touch ashamed. 'I'm sorry, I shouldn't have…it's not appropriate, I'm not meant to...'

She trailed off awkwardly.

The pieces all clicked into place in Mac's mind at that instant.

 _Why_ she seemed to be trying to keep some kind of distance (not particularly well at all, which he supposed was probably because she was warm and kind and friendly by nature, and because she was _human_ – the lives they lived were so isolating in so many ways, they either grew close to one another, became friends, even _family,_ or they had to choose to be alone, and he didn't think she could manage to choose to be alone) finally crystallized in his mind, clear and fully formed and finally making sense.

(He'd thought she was shy, didn't want to impose, things he completely understood, having also grown up a child genius who'd skipped two grades and won too many science fairs by the time he turned sixteen.)

(He'd gone out of his way to try and communicate to her that that was absolutely not the case.)

(Now, he didn't think it was that. At least, not _just_ that.)

He looked up at her, sought out her eyes.

'We're trapped under a building four days before Christmas and it's 11 pm, Beth…' He sighed, ran a hand through his hair, as he attempted to marshal his thoughts into something that made more sense. 'We live pretty unique, high-stress, dangerous and isolating lives. Special lives.' He paused, watching her face as she nodded in agreement with him, looking a little lost in thought, like she already knew where he was going. 'I know you swore an Oath, and I know that's really important to you. But…the circumstances that you swore it under, swore it assuming? They don't apply. So…'

He trailed off, letting her make that last conclusion.

He really, really didn't want her to be lonely. Loneliness was horrifically painful. He'd been lucky to not have felt it much in his life, but there'd been a couple of years, after his mom, before Bozer, when he'd felt it acutely.

She was silent for a moment, thinking about it, before, at last, she gave a little nod, then a bigger, more certain one, looking up at him, into his eyes.

'You're…you're very right.' She gave a wry little smile. 'As you pretty much always are.' Her expression grew softer, more serious again. 'I…I think I knew all of that, but it's just a lot harder to actually execute it…and it really does help to hear it from someone else.' She had years of training, of some kind of mental conditioning, to re-work. A new culture to grow used to. A new life to learn to live, in some ways. 'Thanks, Mac.'

He smiled back at her.

'You're welcome.' Then, he paused for a moment, before speaking, voice gentle, soft, a touch hesitant. 'Did…did the mom and baby live?'

She nodded, the smile on her face growing softer, and sadder, more wistful, at the same time.

'Yes. It was a girl.'

'Is there a little girl in Syria named Bethany now?'

She shot him a _look,_ and Mac gave a sheepish little shrug.

 _A couple once tried to name their poor son after me. I talked them out of it, thankfully._

'They're in Jordan now, as far as I know. And her name is Malaika.'

Mac scrunched up his face a little in thought.

(His Arabic was decent, but mostly limited to the vocabulary that an EOD tech or a secret agent would have cause to know.)

'Plural form of Malak, angel?'

She nodded, reaching out nearly-automatically to check her patient's pulse again. It remained steady, and Mac's simultaneous quick inspection of the makeshift chest drainage system showed that it was still working as it should. Then, when they'd finished their respective tasks, there was silence for a moment, before Beth spoke, hugging her knees to her chest again, voice soft.

'People think I was crazy for going over.'

She didn't, however, sound like she regretted it. Not one bit.

 _And though she be but little, she is fierce._

 _And strong._

 _Much stronger than she looks._

'People thought I was crazy for dropping out of MIT.'

Beth stared at him for a moment, as if he'd said that the moon was made of cheese and he could prove it. She blinked twice, then spoke, still rather disbelieving.

' _You_ dropped out?'

(His Army medical records, which she had access to, started when he was eighteen. He knew she knew that he'd finished high school at sixteen; it'd come up in conversation once or twice and she had an excellent memory. Then again, she probably didn't think that finishing college in two years was insane, even at MIT, with summer courses and winter intensives and the possibility of doing college classes in high school. She'd done pre-med in three, but after a couple of college-reminiscing sessions in the lab with Jill and Bozer and Riley or around the fire-pit, he was pretty sure class timetabling and the admittedly sensible advice that being an 18-year-old medical student was not a good idea were responsible for her not finishing earlier.)

'Yup.'

She tilted her head to the left a little.

'Why?' She looked sheepish, cheeks pinking a little. 'Sorry, you don't have to, I mean, it's very personal…'

He shot her a pointed look, which made her smile sheepishly for a different reason.

'I got a call from my grandfather; we wound up talking about an old Army buddy of his, and…it made me realize that while I was sitting at MIT solving theoretical problems, soldiers out there were facing real problems, ones that I could solve…'

* * *

James and Jack, after delivering the looting teens to the police and making their statements, strode back into the HQ tent, to find Matty pacing and talking into her phone.

'…Thank you very much, I'm sure the people of LA will be extremely grateful and make it known at the next election…'

Matty's words were perfectly polite and diplomatic…but her tone matched that terrifying little smile-smirk of hers.

The one that spelled trouble for Jack.

The one that told James he was in for a long, long argument and the potential (extremely clever and devious) disobedience of his orders afterwards anyway.

(In short, trouble.)

The two men exchanged a glance with a surprisingly large amount of solidarity in it.

Matty hung up and turned to the two of them.

'Good, you're back. Mac and Beth are stuck under a collapsed building.'

Matty the Hun did not mince words.

Jack groaned, throwing his hands up dramatically and throwing his head back just as dramatically.

'I can't leave you unsupervised, can I, brother? _Why me_?'

James glanced over at him, dry humour, even amusement, clear on his face, in his voice, much to Jack's surprise (and Matty's, even – she was well aware that James had a sense of humour, she simply hadn't seen much of it, even with all the years they'd known each other).

'If you think that's bad, you should see what he did to my tool shed when he was eight, after I left him alone for half an hour.'

* * *

'…No, no, don't chew on that, it's not tasty, it's yucky, buttons are yucky!' An exhausted Bozer (it was well past midnight, and he was pretty much alone on baby duty – Alex had run off to fix a broken-down ambulance) did his best to untangle Baby Doe's fingers from his shirt buttons. The kid seemed determined to eat the purple bits of plastic. His attempts ended in failure, so he just lifted the baby up, putting his head over his shoulder…which made the boy tangle his fingers into Bozer's hair instead. 'Oh, no…don't eat that either, it's not gonna taste good…'

Jill and Riley, the former coordinating search and rescue, the latter still searching for Baby Doe's parents (so far, she'd worked out that his mom had been with him at the café, and had a photo of her, but it seemed that the quake had knocked her unconscious – she'd assumedly been taken to hospital when the café had been evacuated, but Riley hadn't managed to determine which hospital yet), glanced at one another, Jill suppressing giggles, Riley laughter.

* * *

'One, two, three…lift!'

Mac and Gabriel lifted the still-unconscious man, who was thankfully still breathing steadily and normally, onto a stretcher, while a second firefighter lifted up Mac's improvised chest drainage device and Beth supervised.

They carried the stretcher and the makeshift medical equipment over to the man-sized gap that'd been cleared in the rubble wall. Mac passed the stretcher through to Jack and a couple of policemen, before the fireman carrying the peristaltic pump and tubing passed that device, with strict instructions, over to another firefighter, before stepping through the hole himself, followed by Gabriel, Beth and Mac.

* * *

Mac stepped down from the slightly-raised ledge that led out and down to the street, taking a deep breath of fresh air. Gabriel and Jack were already loading the injured man into an ambulance, still attached to the clock-and-garden-hose-based improvised chest drainage device.

He smiled, and held out a hand to help Beth down off the ledge (she was a little too short to step down easily like he and the others had done), which made her shake her head with fond exasperation.

Still, she took his hand and jumped down, and the two of them stood there for a moment, savouring being out in the open, in fresh air and (relative) light (generator-powered floodlights were everywhere, making it unnaturally bright, even though it was the middle of the night).

That moment of quiet, of comfort, of respite, was broken by voices calling out, coming from opposite directions.

'Fire! We've got a fire!'

'…He's alive! We need a doctor!'

With the briefest of glances at each other, Mac ran left and Beth ran right.

 _They say there's no rest for the wicked._

 _There's no rest for the good, either. Not on a night like this._

* * *

 **HUNTINGTON HOSPITAL**

 **PASADENA**

* * *

Riley, Jill and Bozer stood just outside a glass-walled hospital room, watching unobtrusively as a man of about thirty cradled his son (no longer Baby Doe, but Martin Wells) in his arms, sitting on the very edge of his wife's hospital bed.

Mrs Wells' head was heavily bandaged and she looked very weak and pale in her hospital bed, but they were assured that she'd recover.

They all gave a little chuckle, Bozer's far more wry, as little Martin reached up and attempted to steal his dad's glasses.

'I'm really gonna miss the little guy.'

Jill looked rather sceptically at him. Bozer looked more tired than she'd ever seen him (which was saying a lot), and still smelled a bit like a combination of baby poo and vomit.

But Riley, despite giving a snort and shaking her head with exasperated affection, reached out and put her arm around his shoulders, pulling him into a side-hug for a moment.

'You did a good job with him.'

* * *

 **MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE**

 **CHRISTMAS DAY**

 **(AT LONG LAST)**

* * *

Chuckling, Mac pocketed his phone and walked out of his front door, partly down his driveway to where Beth had parked her car.

Apparently, she didn't have enough hands to carry everything she'd brought over…which, he realized when he got there, was two large bags of presents (despite the fact that he hadn't invited her to Christmas until _after_ he'd put out that fire on the night of the earthquake, a massive oversight on his part; he'd been waiting until the infirmary schedule was released to see if she was going to her parents' place in West Lafayette for Christmas and really should have just asked, and the day it _was_ released, there was the whole potential diplomatic disaster in Mongolia he'd had to go avert – he suspected that with her rather obsessive tendency to be prepared, she probably purchased an assortment of 'last minute Christmas gifts' every year, probably in October) and a very big box that smelled strongly of gingerbread.

She was also wearing a green-and-white striped shirt, a skirt with a pattern of candy canes and holly printed on it, reindeer antlers and a broad smile and looked _adorable._

He took the two bags of presents as she picked up the gingerbread box, and as they walked towards the house, he grinned over at her.

'I like the antlers.'

'Thanks!' She gave mock-pout. 'It's too warm in LA to wear my _oh chemistree, oh chemistree_ ugly Christmas sweater.'

He laughed.

' _That's_ something I want to see.'

'I'll see if I can dig up a photo for you…' They stepped into the house and she caught sight of the slivery tinsel, which didn't look _quite_ like ordinary tinsel, decorating the walls. She stared at it for just a beat, before she realized why that was the case, and gave a little chuckle, then smiled up at Mac as they headed towards the Christmas tree to deposit her presents. 'I like your aluminium-foil tinsel.'

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Mac, Jack, Matty and Beth were sitting around the fire-pit, all sipping egg-nog, made according to Bozer's top-secret recipe.

'…So I walk into the living room, and guess who'd committed a little B&E?'

Jack gestured towards Mac, who rolled his eyes.

'You'd given me a key six months beforehand. I _used_ that key! Ergo, not B&E!'

As Mac and Jack kept bickering and Matty sat there, sipping her egg-nog with a bit of amusement and much fond exasperation in her eyes, like a very tolerant and very long-suffering mother, Beth suddenly spoke.

'You really don't believe in professional distance, do you?' Immediately after speaking, her cheeks flushed and she raised a hand to her mouth. 'I'm so sorry, I really did not mean to say that out-loud…'

The three more hardened Phoenix employees glanced at each other for a moment, before Mac spoke for them all.

'If we did, we'd be really lonely and suffer from a myriad of associated health concerns.'

Matty continued, seeking out Beth's eyes, her expression probably the softest, most caring, that the younger woman had ever seen directed at her from her boss.

'We work better with people we care about.'

Jack reached out, put a hand on her shoulder.

'And love happens, kiddo. Family happens.'

Beth looked them all in the eyes for a moment, before returning to sipping her egg-nog.

Mac noted that she seemed lost in thought…but also, somehow, steadier, more certain, than she'd been after their conversation under that building a couple of days ago.

That made him smile into his egg-nog.

* * *

'Oh, look, mistletoe.'

Jack looked up at the ceiling, to where Diane was pointing.

Sure enough, there was a sprig of mistletoe above them, connected to a mini-drone that Mac had put together, after being persuaded (read: annoyed and nagged) by Penny, Bozer _and_ Riley.

It was _supposed_ to fly around randomly, but Jack was certain that it didn't.

(It seemed to be following him and Diane around, which certainly explained Riley's rather out-of-character enthusiasm for the mistletoe-drone in the first place.)

He shook his head, but grinned and leaned closer to his girlfriend anyway.

'Well, you know how I feel 'bout traditions…'

He leaned forward a little bit more, and she met him in the middle and he kissed her.

* * *

In the kitchen, Penny put the finishing touches on an extremely ornate gingerbread house, while next to her, Matty stirred her special Christmas punch. On the other side of the kitchen, Bozer carefully arranged slices of kiwifruit on a meringue topped with whipped cream.

(It was a dessert called a pavlova that was apparently an Australian Christmas classic.)

(Cage had sent the recipe for the pavlova – which she'd called a 'pav' – along with a Christmas card.)

His phone beeped and he frantically rushed out onto the deck to check on his pastrami, which was being cooked in Mac's modified grill.

(Riley was supervising it to make sure it didn't catch fire, but Bozer had declared that despite her improving cooking skills and 'general awesomeness', she wasn't ready for pastrami-cooking duties yet.)

(She didn't mind being stuck on the deck; it gave her a chance to play with the snow made by Mac's snowmaker and send funny pictures of it to Billy.)

* * *

In the living room, Mac set out his presents under the tree. He'd just put down the last one (a set of custom controllers for Riley's PS4), when the doorbell rang.

He got up and opened the door, to find his dad standing on the other side, looking a touch awkward and with a bag of presents in hand.

'Merry Christmas, Angus.'

Mac smiled and stepped aside to let him in, gesturing towards the Christmas tree.

'Merry Christmas, Dad.'

James MacGyver smiled back at his son, in that soft way that Mac had missed so much for so many years, and wordlessly made his way over to the tree and unpacked his bag of simply but precisely wrapped (in brown butcher paper with red and green twine) presents, putting the presents under the tree.

All except the very last one, which he handed directly to Mac.

It was rectangular, hard and heavy.

Mac looked up and gave a wry smile.

'It's not a college-level book on how to build my own computer, is it?'

His dad gave a snort that was almost a laugh.

'You enjoyed building that and it gave you a far better understanding of how a computer works than taking apart the one that Harry bought you. But no.' He gestured to the parcel in Mac's hands. 'Open it and see.'

Mac pulled out his Swiss Army knife and cut the twine, then pulled off the sticky tape, then removed the paper to reveal two books, the covers faded and a little worn.

The first book was a very old, leather-bound volume comparing Newtonian and Non-Newtonian physics which looked familiar to him, even though he couldn't quite place it.

On autopilot (or perhaps driven by some old, mostly-faded memory), Mac opened the front cover, to find a short note in his dad's handwriting.

 _For Ellen. Love, James._

He looked up at his dad, saw that wistfulness and sadness and deep love and deeper regret that happy memories of his mother brought up in him in his eyes.

The two MacGyvers shared that moment for a beat, before Mac turned to the second book.

It was thinner, hardcover, but not leather-bound. There was a picture of a yellow-brick road and an impressive emerald city on it.

 _The Wizard of Oz_. An old edition, too.

Carefully, Mac opened the front cover, to find another inscription in his father's writing inside.

 _For my Good Witch. With love, your Tinman._

Mac looked up at his father, seeing that same wistfulness and sadness and love and regret, along with something else he couldn't quite place.

He offered no explanation for the inscription that Mac didn't really understand, and he knew he'd get none, but Mac knew nonetheless from that look on his dad's face that this book had meant a lot.

Maybe meant _everything._

He smiled at his dad, then got up and walked over to his bedroom, carefully placing the books on one of his bookshelves.

(These felt personal, like they should be just between the two of them, for now.)

'Thanks, Dad.'

James smiled back at him, then looked out onto the deck, where everyone else had gathered, sipping egg-nog or Matty's punch that really packed a punch or eating snacks lovingly prepared by Bozer.

'You've built yourself a good family, Angus.'

Mac's smile widened.

'I know.'

* * *

Bozer took a bite of one of the _Jack_ gingerbread cookies that Beth had made, taking off its left arm, and Jack flailed, staring at his own left arm as if it'd disappeared.

'Noooooo!' He glared at Bozer and picked up a _Bozer_ cookie, biting off its right leg, leading to Bozer dramatically freaking out.

Riley, Penny, Matty and Diane exchanged a very long-suffering, yet also very amused and fond glance across the fire, before Riley shrugged, smirked mischievously and picked up a _Jack_ gingerbread cookie, raised it, making sure to make eye contact with the older man…and bit off the head.

Meanwhile, Beth studied the _Riley_ cookie she was holding.

'In hindsight, I really should have considered the implications, and allusions to voodoo, more…'

Mac, sitting next to her, picked up one of the _Mac_ gingerbread cookies and shrugged.

'Hindsight _is_ 20/20.' He studied the cookie. It looked rather unnervingly like him, even if he said so himself, down to sporting a brown leather jacket and with just the suggestion of a bright-red Swiss Army knife sticking out of his olive-green chinos. 'And you did a really good job.'

With another shrug (voodoo wasn't real, after all), he took a big bite.

* * *

 _There'll be parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting and carolling out in the snow._

 _There'll be scary ghost stories, and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago._

 _It's the most wonderful time of the year!_

 _There'll be much mistltoeing, and hearts will be glowing when loved ones are near._

 _It's the most wonderful time of the year!_

* * *

AN: And that's all, folks! Rest assured, they had a very, very Merry Christmas!

This might just be my favourite episode so far! I had a lot of fun writing this, and it was actually one of the very first episodes planned (D.I. Why? was the first one planned, followed by a couple of the later eps, then this one.). Mac and Beth being stuck in the elevator is a reference to the famous Tiva scene from _NCIS,_ while Bozer looking after a baby is reference to Flashlight – hopefully, you guys don't mind that I used an earthquake again! I hope you guys think that Jack and James' interactions were in-character, as well as that scene with Mac and his dad at the end. _The Wizard of Oz_ book and the inscription in it is a reference to a headcanon of mine regarding James and Ellen (which someday, I hope to turn into a story) which largely comes from the idea of the Tin-Man not having a heart but being capable of love, even if he doesn't think so, and my headcanon that Ellen had the 'magical' ability to bring out the better man in James. The lyrics at the start (and the song that Jack is singing) is _I'll be Home for Christmas,_ and the one at the end is _It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year._

There is an episode tag for _Detours_ for this ep, which I will post on Tuesday or Wednesday. Here's the summary:

Houdini, tag to 3.11, Aluminium Foil to Tinsel. Ever since a certain mission in an Azerbaijani casino, the Phoenix's elevator doors have been rated to withstand a small nuclear blast. Naturally, Mac just _has_ to work out how to escape a Phoenix elevator, and enlists Beth to help out.

And here's the press release for the next episode:

3.12, Crayons to Candle. The Phoenix finally gets a lead on Murdoc…and Cassian. Mac faces a no-win scenario, Cassian faces a truth no eight-year-old should have to face, and Murdoc forces the team to face the fact that one of their own is hiding something.

Yup…the drama begins! Who is hiding something? And why? *cackles evilly and runs away*


	12. Crayons to Candle

AN: This last week has been utterly insane! I was in the lab until midnight on Sunday, and until 2:30 am on Wednesday (Thursday?). I'm still recovering, but I did manage to finish this off! Hope you guys like it!

* * *

 **CHEZ DALTON**

 **LA**

* * *

Mac, Bozer and Riley stood just inside the door of Jack's apartment, frozen (unfortunately).

In the living room, Diane managed, somehow, to wrap a throw blanket around herself with some dignity, even as Jack sat on the couch in his boxers looking just as uncomfortable as his three younger friends.

Eventually, Riley broke the _extremely_ awkward silence and strode over to the kitchen, to the cupboard where she knew Jack kept his liquor.

'I need a drink.'

 _I don't blame her._

 _Walking in on your parents is supposed to be one of the most uncomfortable things a human being can experience, after all._

… _I think I'd like a drink myself, actually._

Bozer leaned over and poked his BFF in the arm.

'Brain bleach, bro. Get on it! Some things, I don't want seared into my retinas!'

 _Yeah, sorry, Boze, but that's not happening._

 _Some things actually are impossible. Brain bleach is one of them._

Mac and Bozer strode over to join Riley in the kitchen, and wordlessly, she poured Bozer a shot of vodka.

(Mac didn't drink vodka, for very good reasons.)

(Half of which were classified.)

 _Note to self: next time, knock. Loudly and repeatedly._

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Matty looked even more serious than usual when the four of them filed into the war room. She tapped the glass to frost it over, and Mac automatically reached out and grabbed a paperclip from the bowl.

He had a feeling he'd need it.

Their boss tapped the screen, bringing up a selfie featuring a teenage couple clearly taken from Instagram.

'This was posted seventeen hours ago. Tags and metadata confirm it as being taken in Barstow, California.'

'Uh, Matty, not saying that you've made a mistake, 'cause you're you and all, but why're you showing us a cute 'lil selfie of modern-day Sandy and Danny Zuko?'

Matty didn't roll her eyes or even cross her arms, which made Bozer and Riley exchange a glance, the former slightly wide-eyed.

Meanwhile, Mac was just staring at the photograph, and on some kind of autopilot, he walked up to the screen and pointed at someone in the background.

It was a little boy of about eight, with a head of dark-brown hair.

He looked familiar.

Very familiar.

Jack put the pieces together and spoke.

'Cassian.'

Mac nodded, stepping back from the screen, face set and deadly serious.

'And Murdoc.'

The Phoenix had been chasing Murdoc for months, ever since he'd killed several of the guards at the secure facility where Cassian had been in protective custody and absconded with his son.

They'd always been several steps behind, finding his handiwork, but no sign of Murdoc himself.

The assassin had clearly been on some kind of revenge mission, taking out every single one of that group of assassins he'd put together who'd ultimately betrayed him.

But with almost no intel on who the targets even were or where they could be found (unlike Murdoc), they'd been flying blind and had struggled.

Until now.

Jack started towards the door, the mission clear to all of them, but Matty spoke again, stalling him.

'We've been authorized to use lethal force.'

Jack turned, withdrawing his hand from the door handle.

'License to kill?'

Matty nodded.

'On sight.'

The air grew heavy. Bozer and Riley swallowed and glanced at each other, then at Jack and Mac.

The former didn't seem terribly perturbed…but the latter looked utterly lost in thought, his mind in turmoil.

Murdoc was very, very evil. There was absolutely no hope that he'd stop killing people and reform to any degree, and his escapes over the last couple of years showed that he could not be safely contained.

Realistically, there was only one fool-proof way to prevent him from hurting people, posing a danger to the community, to national security.

And to the people that Mac loved.

The only problem was that that way crossed a red line. Was something Rubicon-crossing.

There'd be no going back, and he was terrified of what was on the other side.

Mac _had_ killed people.

He'd been an Army EOD and seen combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was a covert operative for the US government.

He took great pains to avoid it (literally, sometimes – he'd let himself be injured, taken beatings and bruises and a couple of bullets), but sometimes, it was unavoidable.

It kept him up at night afterwards, occasionally returned to haunt him from time to time, but he could live with it.

Could live with himself.

But he had _never, ever_ killed in cold blood.

(He was no longer convinced that he wasn't _capable_ of it.)

(Hadn't been since that terrible, horrible mission orchestrated by The Organization under the guise of Omnus.)

(Now, he was convinced that he might well be capable…at least when it came to Murdoc.)

(And _that_ was what was terrifying.)

(The feel of Murdoc's throat under his hands, the choking noises the assassin had made, that all-consuming rage, that murderous urge… _that_ still haunted his nightmares.)

Mac tossed down the paperclip his hands had been re-shaping onto the coffee table.

He stared at the little wire set of scales for a beat, then swept out of the war room.

* * *

 **BARSTOW**

 **CALIFORNIA**

* * *

'You sure, Ri?'

The hacker nodded. It wasn't really necessary for Jack to ask that anyway; the Snapchat story currently being posted by a fourteen-year-old girl which had caught a glimpse or two of Murdoc and Cassian at the local park, complete with a Frisbee, was pretty definitive.

Without Mac or Jack having to ask, Riley pulled up a satellite map of the area surrounding the park, and the two more experienced agents leaned forward to take a better look, as Bozer wordlessly took over surveillance of Murdoc and Cassian as the three of them planned.

* * *

 **OFFICE BUILDING**

 **OPPOSITE THE PARK**

 **(THE SIGHTLINES ARE REALLY GOOD)**

 **BARSTOW**

 **CALIFORNIA**

* * *

Jack was uncharacteristically silent and serious as Mac picked the lock at the top of the stairs to the roof. He was uncharacteristically silent and serious as he set up his sniper rifle too.

In fact, he remained uncharacteristically silent until Mac turned to head down towards the park.

The plan called for Mac to let Murdoc sight him at the park.

Ostensibly, that was so he could draw the assassin out so Jack could get a good shot.

They all knew that there were several other reasons for Mac's insistence on acting as bait.

Jack reached out and caught his partner's arm.

'You don't have to do this, son. I can end it from here in seconds.'

Part of Jack wasn't completely certain that it would be that simple (nothing ever _was,_ with Murdoc), but he thought it was literally worth a shot.

He could shoot Murdoc between the eyes without losing sleep, at least, not for the assassin's sake.

In fact, Jack would sleep better knowing that the man was six feet under.

But he'd lose sleep for poor little Cassian, orphaned and losing the only family he'd ever known.

(At least it wouldn't be literally before his eyes. Jack knew Mac would prevent the boy from having to _watch._ )

(And he himself would do everything he could to make sure it was out of the kid's line of sight, when he took the shot.)

Mac was quiet, still, for a moment, before he shook his head, looking the slightest bit apologetic, but also, somehow, very, very firm in his convictions.

'I…I _can't_ , Jack.'

They stared at each other for a long moment, before Jack nodded in acceptance and squeezed Mac's forearm briefly, before letting go.

Mac reached out and grasped Jack's shoulder for a beat, before turning and running down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

This fundamental point of difference had always sat between them. It always would.

But they respected and loved each other too much for it to come between them.

* * *

 **THE PARK**

 **BARSTOW**

 **CALIFORNIA**

* * *

Mac darted between trees in the most heavily-forested part of the park, handily restricting lines of sight from the office building across the road (the only decent sniper's nest in the area), keeping a careful eye on the area of open grassy space just beside the trees where Murdoc and Cassian were tossing a Frisbee back and forth, the little boy laughing with joy and Murdoc with a smile on his face that could only be described as _fatherly_ that really, really unsettled something in Mac's stomach.

Murdoc had spotted him, just as planned, he was sure.

He was completely certain when the assassin tossed the Frisbee far too hard and far too wide, causing it to lodge itself into a tree, quite high up, about sixty yards from Cassian.

'Daddy!'

'Sorry, buddy. Why don't you go grab it? You're a really good climber…'

Cassian beamed and ran off to retrieve the Frisbee without looking back.

Murdoc whirled around, shoving a hand into his pocket, his expression and posture completely changing, voice creepily sing-song.

'Come out, come out, wherever you are, MacGyver…I know you're there…'

Behind a tree, Mac made his decision and stepped out from behind it.

Not even a second later, six red laser dots clustered over his heart, and Murdoc grinned at him in a way that was just as unsettling as his fatherly smile.

Mac looked down at his chest, then up at the assassin.

'Running out of new tricks, Murdoc?'

He laughed, that same laugh that haunted Mac in the dark of the night.

'Oh, you really are something, aren't you, Angus? Hasn't anyone told you that if it ain't broke, don't fix it?'

Mac gestured with his head towards the origin of one of the laser dots.

(The only one he could pin down the location of, but Murdoc didn't need to know that.)

'This is an awful lot of effort for a trip to the park.'

'You're not the only one who was a Boy Scout.' Murdoc chuckled, pacing closer to Mac. 'Or the only one who got kicked out. Turns out trying to hang one of your fellow Scouts is _heavily_ frowned upon…' The assassin's expression changed, shifting into something more serious and possibly even creepier. 'But you're not here so we can reminisce about our childhoods…' Murdoc reached into his pocket again, and five of the laser dots left Mac's chest, instead dancing around others in the park, in the distance. A couple walking their dog. A young woman jogging. An old lady sitting on a bench. Two children running through the grass. Murdoc smirked evilly, stopping six feet from Mac. Just a little too far for him to try anything. '…though I would love to catch up with you. Just the two of us. It'll be just like old times!' Murdoc's smirk grew a little wider, and even more menacing, voice dropping that faux-friendliness. 'Come quietly, MacGyver. Or I'll have to cause a _scene_ …' The threat was clear, made even more obvious by Murdoc reaching into his pocket yet again, fingering the controller he had in there. 'And you would so _hate_ for that to happen, in front of my little boy to boot…'

Cassian's voice rang out, the excitement and the pride and simple, innocent joy in his voice jarring against the heaviness in the air.

'I got it, Daddy!'

Murdoc called back, all menace gone from his voice.

'Great work, pal! Be careful climbing down, alright?'

'I'm _always_ careful, Daddy! Stop worrying!'

Cassian was now making his way down the tree. Mac could see some of the leaves shaking.

Mac swallowed, as Murdoc, very deliberately, took four steps to the right, immediately causing a red dot to appear on his forehead, dead centre between his eyes, holding Mac's gaze.

It was a taunt. A dare. A challenge.

One that Mac could not meet.

Could not allow himself to meet.

And Murdoc knew that.

Mac swallowed again and spoke, addressing his partner over his earpiece.

'Stand down, Jack.'

'Son-'

' _Stand down_!'

His voice actually cracked.

There was silence on the other end, and then, after a beat, the red dot between Murdoc's eyes disappeared.

The assassin smirked even wider, lording his victory over Mac, and gestured to the blonde's head, before reaching into his other pocket.

'Swapsies, Angus.'

Mac, left without a choice, took out his earpiece and tossed it to Murdoc, receiving a vial of clear liquid in return.

It had _drink me_ written on it in black permanent marker.

Murdoc looked expectantly at him, sliding one hand towards the pocket holding the controller to his own sniper rifles, and Mac took a deep breath, uncorked the vial and swallowed the contents.

'Nightshade derivative?'

Murdoc smiled darkly.

'New and improved.'

It probably was. Whatever it was (the Phoenix had never quite been able to pin it down, even with Jill and Ritchie working on it for days, last time), it was fast-acting, because Mac was already feeling a little woozy. Murdoc reached out and put an arm around him, under his shoulders, helping to hold him up, and smiled at Cassian as the boy ran up, holding the Frisbee.

'This is my friend MacGyver, bud. He isn't feeling so well, so he's going to be our guest for a while…'

* * *

He vaguely recalled, deep in a haze, being driven to a very ordinary house.

He heard, as if from far away or from underwater, Murdoc telling Cassian to go upstairs to his room, suggesting that the little boy draw him a picture using those brand-new crayons he'd just bought him.

He had the impression of being dragged without any care or consideration down the stairs, into the basement.

He was quite sure that he'd felt the weight and tightness of restraints going around his ankles, his wrists.

And then…there was nothing.

* * *

He woke to a very unpleasant sight.

An unpleasantly familiar sight.

He was restrained to a chair in a dank, dark room, complete with mould growing on the walls and what disturbingly may have been blood stains.

(It was chains this time, instead of duct-tape, which was even worse. Harder to escape.)

There was an IV coming out of his arm, feeding a clear liquid into his arm, which he knew just had to be more of that nightshade-derived sedative he'd been forced to drink earlier.

And in front of him, grinning with sadistic joy and satisfaction, was Murdoc.

Next to the assassin was a whole bunch of various household appliances, tools and knives on a table.

Torture implements.

'Good morning, MacGyver. How nice of you to join me at last. I was starting to get impatient…'

Murdoc ran a hand almost-lovingly along his rows of torture tools.

The one small mercy was that Cassian wasn't in the room. Wasn't in the dungeon. Wasn't going to have to witness this.

Mac looked up defiantly at his captor, as best as he could, anyway, since he was sort-of seeing two of him.

'Not a fan of starting them young, Murdoc?'

It was a low blow.

He knew it.

(Especially since it wasn't as if this was the best option, the one that caused the least harm, like in that cabin in the woods on his and Leanna and Bozer and Riley's fake honeymoons, for example.)

(He really could have stayed silent; it wasn't as if saying anything was helping him get out of this situation, after all.)

But Murdoc hadn't fought fair. Never had, really.

Sometimes, in cases like this, you had to fight dirty.

Fight fire with fire.

Mac swore that he saw _something_ flash across his nemesis's eyes for a millisecond, before it was gone, replaced by that extremely unsettling glee and levity that Murdoc so often had.

'Daddy MacGyver did, didn't he?' There was a moment of panic in Mac's chest as the (illogical) conclusion that Murdoc somehow knew the truth, the whole truth, about his father crossed his mind, but he was able to dismiss it (his dad wasn't going to win any Father of the Year awards, but he _was_ a world-class secret agent), and to conceal it as simple surprise. 'Oh, don't look so shocked, Angus…you spent so long looking for him and you couldn't find him. Only one kind of man could hide from a trained professional with your dogged, foolish determination for that long. Simple deduction.' Murdoc spread his arms out. 'Elementary, my dear MacGyver.' Murdoc's smirk turned darker. 'But you've just given me the most interesting clue…'

Mac swore internally, but leaned back as best as he could in his seat (it was hard; his head kept wanting to loll forwards).

'A, despite popular belief, Sherlock Holmes never actually said that, you know. B, my dad never dragged me on a cross-country road-trip with a side of murder…'

He swore that hit a nerve.

Something crossed Murdoc's eyes, something darker and angrier than usual. A little wounded. A little hurt. Something that reminded Mac of a cornered predator.

That made a voice in his head wonder, ask, if Murdoc really _did_ love Cassian.

At least, if Murdoc loved his son as best, as much, as Murdoc could love anyone. A twisted, deformed kind of love, perhaps, but love nonetheless.

If he really _was_ determined to be a good father.

It wasn't all that surprising, perhaps, if Murdoc's story about his own father that he'd told him on that train over that can of beans was true.

It was an unsettling thought.

One that Mac wasn't quite sure how to process, or where to place, or even what it truly meant. What the implications were.

He was pulled out of those thoughts by Murdoc finally, after perusing his large collection of torture utensils, selecting a very heavy-looking wrench.

He approached Mac, wrench in hand.

The Phoenix agent steeled himself for the pain.

* * *

Murdoc held the iron ever-closer to Mac's left shin. The blonde did his best to wiggle away as much as he could, but he was so weak, so tired, so foggy, and firmly, expertly restrained to boot that he made essentially no progress.

The iron touched his trouser leg, pressed against him, for the briefest of seconds, causing him to yowl in pain.

(He'd done everything he could to stay silent, to hide his reactions, and he still was trying, but strength of will could only get you so far.)

The iron was withdrawn. Mac gritted his teeth and focused on the Periodic Table, trying to ignore the searing pain it left.

'…gallium…germanium…arsenic…selenium…'

Murdoc laughed.

'You really are adorable, Angus.'

He inched the iron closer again.

* * *

Mac breathed hard, fighting to get as much air into his system as he could during what he knew would be a brief reprieve.

Murdoc, meanwhile, just smiled darkly.

'…three, two, one…time's up, Angus!'

He pressed the cattle prod into Mac's stomach again, and the blonde completely forgot about breathing, arching in pain, yanking on the restraints binding him to the chair (which was bolted to the ground, so did not move), face contorting into a silent scream.

He tried to focus on the lanthanides and actinides, but he was too lost in pain and drugged murkiness to do so.

Unconsciousness, when it came, was a blessing.

* * *

 **PHOENIX VAN**

 **BARSTOW**

 **CALIFORNIA**

* * *

'…We lose him here. For good.'

Riley pointed to a fork in the road two miles out of Barstow.

She and Jill had pooled their skills, the forensic analyst helping via video link from the Phoenix. Jack had contributed his AMOS knowledge, and Bozer his eye for detail.

The local FBI had chipped in too.

But try as they might, they could not find Murdoc.

Could not work out where he'd taken Mac.

Jack tossed the water bottle he'd been holding to the floor.

'That's not good enough, Riles! Do better!'

He turned and stormed out of the van, pushing past a concerned Bozer, watched by a wide-eyed Jill and an unsurprised, but worried, Matty on the screen.

Riley, meanwhile, swallowed the hurt that Jack's words caused (he didn't mean them, not really) and got up, stepping outside after him.

* * *

Jack was pacing along the side of the road, kicking rocks with great force.

Riley leaned against a tree, crossed her arms, and waited for the older man to let out the worst of his anger.

Finally, after a couple of minutes, when his pacing slowed, she spoke as he walked past her.

'It's not your fault, Jack.'

That made him stop in his tracks, his back to her, and then, slowly, turn to face her.

'I should've killed him last time, when I had the chance.'

A part of Riley actually agreed with that.

(It didn't make her happy or satisfied; in fact, it made her a little uncomfortable, even ashamed, but that part of Riley wholeheartedly agreed that it'd have been a good idea.)

(It'd have saved a lot of people a lot of pain. Matty wouldn't have had to go and tell several families that their father or mother or husband or wife or sister or brother wasn't coming home from work. Mac wouldn't be doubtlessly suffering right now. They wouldn't be undergoing a different kind of suffering right now.)

(And Cassian…well, she'd thought _she'd_ had a shitty father growing up. She'd thought Mac had a shitty father who was _still_ pretty shitty. But that poor kid had it hundreds of times worse.)

Jack sighed, reading as much in Riley's expression, most of the anger going out of him, leaving guilt behind, as he joined her in leaning against the tree.

He really was completely convinced that he should have killed Murdoc that day in that warehouse.

He would have, was about to, if Mac hadn't stopped him.

He didn't think his partner would have ever completely forgiven him if he had.

(Murdoc had saved his life, even if it was only because he wanted something only they could give him, and because he wanted to kill Mac himself.)

(Besides, even without that, Mac was no killer.)

Oh, they'd still work together, just as much a well-oiled machine as they always were. They'd still be partners. They'd still be friends. They'd still be family.

But it would always, always have sat between them.

In a moment like this…Jack thought he could live with that trade-off.

Riley seemed to know which way his thoughts were going, because she reached out, put an arm around his shoulders.

'You can't change the past, Jack.' She would know. 'But sometimes…you get a chance to fix your mistakes.'

She said that neutrally, not encouraging or discouraging him from any course of action, just stating a fact.

Jack was silent for a moment, before pulling her into a side-hug.

'When'd you get so wise, Ri?'

She gave a snort.

'I always have been, relative to a _certain someone_ , anyway.'

* * *

 **MURDOC'S SAFEHOUSE**

 **LOCATION: UNKNOWN**

* * *

'Mr MacGyver? Mr MacGyver?'

No-one called him Mr MacGyver.

Blearily, Mac forced his eyes open as consciousness returned fully. Or at least as fully as it could, considering the drip he could still feel in his arm.

He did a double-take, wondering if he was hallucinating, suffering from some side-effect of that new-and-improved, nightshade-based sedative, or if his brain had decided to make this all up to try and help him cope with the pain.

The image in front of him didn't change.

He probably wasn't hallucinating.

Murdoc was gone, but in his place was Cassian, who looked rather concerned and was holding up a bottle of water.

When he saw Mac was awake, the worry in his eyes faded slightly, and he brought the bottle to the Phoenix agent's lips, helped him drink his fill.

Then, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cereal bar, holding that up for Mac so he could eat it.

Then, without saying another word, Cassian stuffed the wrapper into his pocket and tucked the half-empty water bottle into his jacket and made to leave.

Mac called out, causing the boy to turn and look back at him.

'Thank you.'

Cassian gave a little smile, then darted out of the basement.

* * *

 **PHOENIX VAN**

 **BARSTOW**

 **CALIFORNIA**

* * *

'…Nope, sorry.'

Jill, on one of the computer screens in the van, really did look very sorry, and almost as worried as Jack, Bozer and Riley felt, but it didn't make any of them feel any less terrible.

Attempting to run down and trace quite literally anything that they knew Murdoc would have bought or could have bought or might have bought recently wasn't getting anywhere.

The guy was too good.

He cursed under his breath, which made Riley turn her head, glance over at him in concern. He shook his head, a silent request in his eyes, which she understood, giving a little nod of acknowledgement and returning to chasing down leads.

The only thing that would get rid of that creature gnawing at Jack's guts was getting his partner back.

* * *

 _Did you know that even in 17_ _th_ _century England, the rack was considered such a horrific form of torture that it required authorization by warrant and there were questions on its legality?_

 _Probably why Murdoc chose it…_

* * *

 **MURDOC'S SAFEHOUSE**

 **LOCATION: UNKNOWN**

* * *

Mac couldn't help but scream and struggle in an attempt, futile though it was, to relieve the horrible, horrible pain, that sensation of being literally pulled apart.

All attempts to focus on the Gettysburg Address had failed.

Murdoc, a terrible, sadistic gleam in his eyes, finally let go of the wheel, letting the rack contract back to its usual length, relieving the strain on Mac's limbs.

He panted, catching his breath, before looking up at Murdoc, seeking out his eyes.

He was now as convinced as he ever was about anything to do with Murdoc that, somehow, despite the fact that he was clearly some kind of psychopath, Murdoc cared about his son.

Loved Cassian, or at least, loved him as well as Murdoc could love.

In his own, very twisted way.

 _Yeah, maybe I am a naïve fool, looking for the goodness in everyone._

 _But no-one's born evil._

 _Not even Murdoc._

 _And maybe a little good – the tiniest, tiniest amount - has survived._

'This…this is no way for him to grow up, Murdoc. Moving all the time, not being able to have close friends…'

 _Something_ flashed in Murdoc's eyes. Something Mac read as anger.

'And he had all that, Angus. Until _someone's_ people swooped in and took him into _protective custody.'_

Guilt bloomed in Mac's mind.

He hadn't _approved_ of using Cassian against Murdoc.

But he'd allowed it to happen.

Allowed the little boy to be taken from his school, from his friends, from people who might just have been _family_ to him.

Then, suddenly, Murdoc threw his head back and chortled, getting words out between laughs.

'Oh, you're so easy, so predictable…so soft, Angus! So, so easy!'

The guilt prickled into annoyance, into anger.

'This is _not_ a childhood, Murdoc! Don't you want him to have everything you didn't?'

The assassin just kept laughing, shaking his head, even slapping a hand against his thigh.

'Oh, you are so, so predictable…' Murdoc gave a haunting grin. 'You really did buy that story about my daddy dearest, didn't you?'

Ignoring that prickle of doubt (he was as sure about that as he ever was with anything to do with this madman – aside from the fact that Murdoc's ultimate endgame was always his death after a whole lot of pain, which was a certainty), Mac looked up at him again and spoke with more certainty than he actually felt.

'Because it's true.'

Murdoc smirked.

'Or is it?' His smirk widened, darkened further, and he leaned closer and closer to Mac, so their faces were only a couple of inches apart. 'You'll never, ever know, MacGyver…'cause you'll be six feet under.'

Murdoc eyed the wheel that shifted the panels of the rack apart, and then clicked his tongue, seemingly changing his mind.

He walked over to his table of torture implements, and after perusing them, picking a couple up and discarding them, he picked up a standard, everyday hammer, beating it lightly against his palm like a baseball bat.

A dark, _happy, eager_ light in his eyes, he stalked back over to his helpless prisoner.

Mac took a deep breath.

* * *

It felt like hours later (but he knew, objectively, it couldn't have been more than a few minutes) when he thought he finally let the last of that breath go.

The world was starting to swim around the edges again, and he knew it wouldn't be long before unconsciousness (blessed unconsciousness – a respite, no matter how brief) took him again.

With great effort, Mac turned his head a little to face Murdoc.

His ribs _ached,_ his throat _burned_ from screaming and he wasn't sure if his lungs would ever feel fully-inflated again, but he forced himself to speak, as hoarse and weak as his voice was when it came out.

'You…you do care…about Cassian…in your own way…and…and you think that's a weakness. But…I promise you…it isn't. It's…it's the opposite…'

Somewhere in the dark, bottomless pit of Murdoc's eyes, something _ignited_ , and Mac could practically _see_ the assassin's control snap.

Murdoc raised the hammer, brought it down, out of Mac's sight, and next thing Mac knew, the world had contracted down to nothing but _pain_ in the vicinity of his right kidney.

And then…nothing.

* * *

When Mac woke again, he was back in that chair, tightly secured, with the drip coming out of his arm, keeping him woozy and incapacitated.

His prison was quiet, the rack gone, the other torture implements secreted away again.

(Both times he'd left the room, Murdoc had moved everything into a storage room off the side of the basement, as if concerned that Mac might somehow get out of the chair and use those tools to escape.)

But he wasn't alone.

On the far side of the room, right next to the door, Cassian was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, knees up to form a makeshift easel on which an art pad rested, a crayon in hand, more in a brand-new box next to him.

He looked up when he seemed to sense Mac was awake, and the two of them stared at each other for a long moment.

Cassian looked him up and down. Mac was pretty sure he'd look horrifying to a kid; he felt like one giant bruise and had to look like one too.

He was pretty sure the nasty, jagged cut over his left eyebrow was still seeping blood, too.

Finally, the little boy broke the silence.

'Did my daddy do that to you?'

His voice was quiet, but more certain, less hesitant, less _innocent_ than Mac had suspected.

It seemed that Cassian was not as ignorant to the truth as his father wanted him to be. Had tried to keep him.

Still, Mac didn't want to nod, didn't want to say yes.

Didn't want to destroy what innocence and ignorance the eight-year-old had left.

He'd been twenty-seven when he'd learned that his father wasn't who he'd thought he was.

And while his father probably wasn't a _good_ guy, he wasn't a _Bad Guy_ either.

And he definitely wasn't a monster.

And it'd still hurt. Still torn his world apart.

Still, Cassian seemed to get an answer from his non-answer, because his face fell, and he returned to drawing with his crayons in silence.

This time, Mac broke the silence.

'Does…does your daddy know you're here?'

If Murdoc knew that his son was in here, knew that he was actually talking to Mac, knew that Cassian had brought him food and water, shown him _kindness…_

Mac feared what the assassin would do to the boy.

(He might love him, but Mac harboured no illusions that it wasn't a twisted, possessive, dark form of love.)

Cassian shook his head.

'No. He doesn't know I know how to get in.' He sounded very much an eight-year-old…and very much _not_ at the same time. 'I'm not supposed to be in here. For my own protection.' Cassian made a face, looking supremely unconvinced and like he felt like he'd been unjustly wronged. 'That's what the people who took me away from my school and all my friends and wouldn't let me go play in the park with my new friends or invite them over to play said too, and Daddy had to rescue me from _them_.' Cassian paused and shrugged with all the certainty of a kid. 'Besides, you're nice and not scary.'

Despite everything, despite that flare of guilt that Cassian's words triggered, Mac gave a little laugh and a smile.

Especially compared to the other people who'd probably been in Murdoc's basement before him, he probably _did_ look particularly unthreatening and nice.

'I think you're nice and not scary too.'

Cassian smiled up at him, before returning to his drawing.

It made absolutely no sense whatsoever, but Mac felt a calm, a peace (perhaps the eye of the storm?) settle in the air.

* * *

'Dad? You're back earlier than usual…'

Murdoc stood at the top of the basement stairs, the look in his eyes only describable as _murderous._

He strode down the stairs, coat billowing out behind him, and stood over Cassian, who looked frightened.

'You're not supposed to be down here, Cassian.'

There was dark, ominous and tightly-leashed anger in his voice.

'Dad, I just-'

Murdoc's control slipped, and he lunged forward.

For a second, Mac feared the worst. His brain started reeling through things, anything, that he could say to refocus the assassin's anger and wrath, bring it down on _him_ , instead of the poor kid whose only crime was to be sired by a terrible excuse for a human being.

But thankfully, Murdoc simply wrenched Cassian's precious crayons from his hands, and tossed them against the wall next to the stairs.

'Go to your room, _now_ , Cassian.'

The anger was just as dark, just as ominous, but less tightly leashed this time.

Cassian, thankfully, recognized that, and lowered his head meekly, scuttling over to the stairs, stopping only to retrieve his broken crayons.

Meanwhile, Murdoc just stared at Mac, his control on his anger slipping inch by inch.

As soon as the door slammed behind Cassian, Murdoc advanced on the Phoenix agent, the look in his eyes boding terribly for Mac.

 _No matter what…better me than him._

 _Always._

* * *

 **PHOENIX VAN**

 **BARSTOW**

 **CALIFORNIA**

* * *

'…We know Murdoc was trying to put together that Rogue's Gallery for Mac, but then when they went all Judas on him, he started taking them out on his cross-country road-trip of murder.' Jill, Matty, Jack and Riley, the former pair on a screen, the latter sitting beside Bozer in the back of the van, all nodded, as Bozer continued. 'Well…what if he didn't just take 'em out, but also took their contingency stuff? Like fake IDs and weapons caches and safehouses?'

Bad guys did that sort of thing in movies and on TV all the time.

Why not in real life?

Maybe they'd been too focused on Murdoc himself. Maybe the key to catching Murdoc wasn't in chasing _him,_ but his victims?

(Bozer refused to believe that he was just clutching at straws, because that was _his_ BFF that Murdoc had in his evil little hands.)

Jill and Riley instantly started typing away.

'Cross-referencing all of Murdoc's known movements with any and all known safehouses and boltholes belonging to the assassinated assassins…'

Matty nodded, seeking out Bozer's eyes.

'Good work, Boze. You might be on to something.'

Jack just stared at Riley's laptop screen as images and algorithms flashed across it.

* * *

 **MURDOC'S SAFEHOUSE**

 **LOCATION: STILL UNKNOWN**

* * *

Cassian wiggled himself through the tiny little crawlspace (one that no adult could hope to fit through), until he came to the vent that was his target.

The vent that opened out into the basement.

He watched, completely silent, through the grill as his dad (wearing a gas mask), sprayed Mr MacGyver with something that smelled really, really spicy.

Mr MacGyver was crying. He looked like he was in pain.

His dad looked really, really happy.

It made Cassian uncomfortable. It made something prickle in the back of his mind.

A voice in his head screamed that this was _wrong,_ and he had to do something about it, stop his dad from hurting Mr MacGyver.

Just like when he'd seen Bobby Tate take Casey Donovan's lunch money.

And his favourite teacher, Mrs Maple, always said that hurting other people was wrong. Was bad.

Mrs Maple was really nice and really kind and really wise, so he trusted what she said.

Even when it was his daddy who was doing bad things.

(Because, sometimes…Cassian got that uncomfortable, uncertain prickly feeling around his dad, when he smiled a certain way or came back from some of his business trips or left on some of them or brought certain 'guests' over.)

(Or, very, very occasionally, when his dad got mad at him. Really, really mad, like just then, when he'd caught him in the basement.)

It wasn't right to let people get away with doing bad things.

Mrs Maple said if you just stood there without doing anything, you were a bully too.

Cassian figured it still applied when your dad was the bully, since it applied if your best friend was the bully too.

He shimmied backwards, back towards the small hall closet that the vent's other opening was in.

* * *

In the hallway, Cassian paused next to the hidden compartment where his dad had put the emergency phone, the one that Cassian was supposed to use to call him when he was away on a business trip if any strangers came by or even if his Spidey-senses went off.

He could use it to call the police.

As far as he knew, you were supposed to call the police for serious cases of adults being bullies.

But his dad didn't like police.

He'd told Cassian that if the police found them, Cassian would be taken away from him and would have to change schools _yet again_ and wouldn't be allowed to play with his friends anymore.

Cassian believed him.

That was what had happened last time, when the people who were even more powerful than the police had showed up at his school in Switzerland.

He shook his head, coming to a decision.

He wasn't going to call the police.

He didn't want to be taken away from his dad, even if his dad was bullying Mr MacGyver.

He was still his dad.

Cassian headed for the basement.

* * *

Cassian's father had a bag of fish-hooks in hand, and was smiling in that way that made Cassian get that uncomfortable, prickly feeling in his brain at Mr MacGyver.

Cassian gathered his courage and spoke, loudly and clearly.

'Dad, stop!' His father whirled around, dropping the fish-hooks. Cassian swallowed and raised his chin. 'It's wrong to hurt other people. You have to stop.'

Cassian's father just advanced towards him, almost shaking with anger.

He'd _never_ seen him so angry before.

(He'd thought his dad had been mad at him before, as mad as he could ever be at him, but clearly, he'd been wrong.)

There was a look in his eyes, all anger and fire and darkness, that _terrified_ him.

Cassian had seen that look in his dad's eyes before.

But never, ever directed at him.

That voice in his head was telling him to run, run as fast as he could, but his legs wouldn't cooperate. He felt frozen in place, as his dad got closer and closer and closer, that scary look on his face getting scarier and _scarier_ …

* * *

He still couldn't see very well thanks to Murdoc's liberal use of DIY capsicum spray on him, but Mac could see well enough to see Murdoc advancing on his own son.

His eight-year-old son, who looked truly, genuinely, completely, utterly terrified, in a way that he hadn't when Murdoc had broken his crayons earlier.

Like he really did fear that his dad was going to hurt him, truly, truly hurt him, not just scold him or confiscate his toys or ban dessert for a month or even break his crayons.

Mac didn't need his near-eidetic memory or excellent imagination to see the look on Murdoc's face in his mind's eye.

He had to do something.

Now.

He forced his painfully hoarse voice to work.

'…As you can see, I can be very persuasive, Murdoc…'

The assassin whirled around, his anger finding a new target, and Mac was thankfully able to see Cassian's legs start working and the little boy run up the stairs as fast as he could, before Murdoc was on him and a searing pain grew across his cheek…

* * *

 **PHOENIX VAN**

 **BARSTOW**

 **CALIFORNIA**

* * *

'Got an address.'

Riley's declaration was more relieved than triumphant, and Jack jumped up and leapt into the driver's seat without so much as a quip or a cracking of his knuckles.

'Buckle up.'

His voice was flat, completely serious.

And completely unlike _Jack._

As they secured themselves and their equipment in the back of the van as Jack started the engine, Bozer and Riley exchanged a glance.

They had more than a sneaking suspicion that Jack had plans for Murdoc that didn't involve throwing him into a ten-by-ten concrete box.

No, the plans probably involved a wooden box, six feet under.

And that coffin would sit between the partners forever.

* * *

 **MURDOC'S SAFEHOUSE**

 **LOCATION: NO LONGER UNKNOWN**

* * *

As the local SWAT team, led by Jack, advanced through the front yard, they were startled by one of Murdoc's 'insurance policies' (a semi-automatic that ran on a semi-automated system) falling out of a tree, clearly disabled.

The men looked up, pointing their weapons at the source of the destruction.

The leaves shook a little, and then, a small face popped out from the foliage, then shoulders and arms. Cassian already had his hands up, and spoke, voice small and a little hesitant and scared, but with a note of relief in it too.

'Are you friends of Mr MacGyver?' Jack nodded immediately. Cassian looked more relieved, and pointed at the house. 'The basement, hurry!'

Jack didn't need to be told twice.

* * *

Jack stared at the assassin in front of him, who had his hands up, clearly knowing he was beaten.

(Jack's weapon was trained between his eyes. Six assault rifles belonging to the SWAT team's members were trained on his heart.)

He wanted nothing more than to beat the hell out of the man, to inflict just as much pain on him as he'd inflicted on Jack's partner.

(Bruises were starting to bloom on Mac's cheekbones – unsurprising, since Murdoc had been repeatedly punching him in the face when they'd burst into the basement. There was a still-sluggishly-bleeding cut over his left eyebrow. And his eyes were horrifyingly red.)

(And that was just what Jack could see on his face.)

And then, he wanted to put a bullet between his eyes and one through his heart for good measure.

Personally, he thought, knowing Murdoc, that'd save them a hell of a lot of trouble later.

Jack was just about to pass off his weapon and force-feed Murdoc a feast of knuckle sandwiches when he heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

They were an unfamiliar cadence, so not Bozer or Riley. And far too light to be one of the jack-booted, body-armour-wearing SWAT commandos.

It could only be one person.

Jack swallowed, and forced his desire to beat Murdoc to within an inch of his life, tear him limb from limb and _then_ give him lead poisoning aside.

Not in front of Cassian.

The poor kid had been dealt a terrible lot in life.

He didn't need Jack beating his father to death in front of his eyes.

Jack gestured with his head to one of the SWAT team to cuff Murdoc, and sheathed his weapon and made his way over to his partner instead.

He pulled the lock-pick he'd borrowed from the SWAT guys out of his pocket and got to work on the cuffs.

Once his hands were free, Mac, a little clumsily but with great determination, reached out and tugged the IV out of his arm.

Jack eyed the trickle of blood that followed warily, before reaching out to help his partner to his feet, wrapping an arm firmly around him as Mac stumbled.

'You gonna be okay, son?'

Mac managed a small smile.

'I will be now.'

* * *

'…I don't care if it's _potential evidence_ , it's every worldly possession an _eight-year-old_ has _…'_ Matty rolled her eyes. She and Gonzales' team had arrived ten minutes ago, as she wasn't trusting escorting Murdoc to prison to anyone else. And she was already having to deal with _idiots._ 'We've already run a bug check, the Phoenix has top-notch jamming for foreign signals and the best forensic analyst on the West Coast will check over everything _non-invasively_ and send you her detailed report. We're not idiots.'

She left the _unlike someone_ unsaid.

(Matty the Hun could be diplomatic, after all.)

* * *

Matty slipped back into Cassian's bedroom, where Mac (whom the little boy had attached himself to and refused to let out of his sight), after being checked over by Anita the medic, and Riley were helping him pack.

Cassian paused after handing Mac an armload of clothes, which the blonde immediately started rolling up efficiently and packing into a suitcase that Bozer had found at a local thrift shop.

The little boy flopped onto the bed, eyes falling on the open box of broken crayons on the floor, resting against the wall.

He fiddled with the bedspread for a moment, before grabbing his pillow and hugging it to his chest, then speaking, looking at the floor.

'My…my dad's a really bad guy, isn't he?'

He sounded like he already knew the answer, but simply didn't like it.

Mac and Riley exchanged a glance full of empathy, while Matty made her way over to Cassian's bed and sat down beside him with a nod, seeking out his eyes and speaking gently, but firmly. With great certainty.

'You aren't defined by your father, Cassian.'

Matty looked pointedly over at Mac and Riley, and the hacker picked up the thread, sitting down on Cassian's other side.

'Sure, he's your father, but you get to choose your family.'

Mac sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall next to Cassian's crayons, looking the boy in the eye.

'And the family you choose… _who_ you choose to be in it, is more important than the one you're born with.'

Cassian was silent for a long moment, still hugging his pillow, before he leaned, seemingly unconsciously, a little closer to Riley and nodded in understanding.

Matty, Mac and Riley all gave little smiles, and after a moment of hesitation, Riley raised a hand to rub Cassian's shoulder comfortingly.

There was silence for a beat, before Cassian's eyes fell on his broken crayons again and his expression grew painfully, heart-breakingly sad.

Riley squeezed his shoulder.

'We'll buy you some new crayons.'

Mac, meanwhile, glanced at Cassian as if asking for permission, his hand hovering over the crayons, and when the little boy nodded, he picked them up and started examining them. A moment later, he looked up at Cassian and smiled, holding up a broken-in-half crayon.

'And I can show you how to turn this…' He waggled the crayon in his hand. '…into something new, something useful.'

Cassian gave a little smile.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

As they walked into the Phoenix, Cassian, a little awed and made nervous by the new environment, tucked himself a bit closer to Mac and Riley (whom he'd grown very attached to, very quickly). Mac offered the boy his hand, and after a moment of internal debate (he was _eight,_ he wasn't a little kid anymore!), Cassian took it.

Jack and Matty glanced at each other, then at the three younger Phoenix agents, before they headed off towards the war room to handle business.

As they reached the corridor that led to the lab, Bozer, who was holding Cassian's suitcase, and Riley, holding a bag containing the last of his belongings, stopped, causing Mac and Cassian to stop too. Mac leaned over to his friends, speaking quietly.

'Can you help Jill find the stuff on the list I texted her? We'll meet you in the lab in about half an hour.'

Bozer and Riley both nodded, Bozer giving a little salute, clearly taking the assignment very seriously. Then, they headed off towards the lab and Jill, while Mac led Cassian further into the Phoenix.

The little boy tugged on his hand.

'Where are we going, Mac?'

He looked down at Cassian and smiled wryly.

'Somewhere where I spend _way_ too much time…'

* * *

Mac didn't miss the way that Cassian's hand tightened a little on his when they entered the infirmary.

Thankfully, he'd anticipated that that might be the case, and Beth was waiting for them in the little room she'd set up for Cassian with a warm, friendly smile on her face.

(She was the Phoenix's least-scary-looking doctor by a country mile, and she had a particularly gentle touch and was good with kids.)

(Besides, Cassian had taken to him, seemed to trust him and consider him a friend, and it was always easier to trust a friend, especially a close friend, of a friend.)

She raised a hand and waved when she saw them, and Mac led Cassian over to her.

'This is my friend, Dr Beth.' Beth crouched down, which put her a few inches below Cassian's eye level, and held out her hand. Hesitantly, Cassian shook it. 'She's going to give you a check-up.' Cassian had scrapes and bruises from hiding in the crawlspace and climbing up and down trees to disable Murdoc's security system. He was also almost-certainly in shock and they had no idea if he'd had a health check in the almost-year since Murdoc had taken him from protective custody. Cassian's hand tightened a little more on Mac's. 'Uh…right after she gives me one.'

* * *

Beth kept her 'check-up' of Mac quick and cursory.

He could tell that, unsurprisingly, she was _not_ happy about his condition. She also wasn't exactly happy about being 'quick and cursory' and not really dealing with his injuries, but she'd been trained to triage.

He'd been patched up by Anita already, and he knew that the medic would have updated Beth on his condition.

Besides, Murdoc had been keen on extracting every single possible drop of pain from him, which meant doing things very, very slowly.

He was badly bruised, and had some cuts and scrapes and burns, as well as what he suspected was bruised ribs, bruised kidneys and a potentially bruised cheekbone, plus badly strained muscles and probably a pulled ligament or three, but there was really nothing all that _serious_ about his injuries.

And most importantly, this check-up wasn't for him.

It was for Cassian, who was sitting next to him on the bed, watching Beth's every move.

He'd watched her cautiously at first, warily. Now, he seemed to be watching more out of curiosity.

Beth smiled at him, and held out a still-sealed Band-Aid.

'Can you open that for me?'

* * *

Beth finished checking Cassian's heart and lungs using her stethoscope, and turned her attention to checking his blood pressure instead.

Before she attached the cuff, though, she pulled several different kinds of Band-Aids from her scrubs pocket, laying them down next to Cassian on the bed so he could see them. There was a plain one, three different _Dora the Explorer_ designs and three _Frozen_ ones.

(Mac gave a little smile at that. He was pretty sure that _be prepared_ was Beth's life motto.)

'You've got a few scrapes that we're going to need to clean and put Band-Aids on. Which Band-Aids would you like?'

Cassian's eyes lit up as the blood pressure cuff tightened around his arm. He didn't even seem to notice it, and pointed eagerly at the _Frozen_ Band-Aids with his free hand.

'Do you have any ones with Olaf on them, Dr Beth? He's my favourite character, 'cause I love summer!' He paused and looked bashful. 'Please?'

Beth's smile widened as she removed the blood pressure cuff, noting down the measurement on her tablet, then turning back to Cassian.

'I like Olaf too, because he always tries very hard to be cheerful, has a big heart and is also really wise.'

Cassian beamed.

'Some people are worth melting for!'

Beth nodded sagely in agreement.

'Yes, they are.'

(Mac couldn't help but smile a little wider.)

* * *

When she finished Cassian's check-up, Beth reached into her seemingly-bottomless pockets and pulled out a snack-size pack of M&Ms, which she handed to Cassian, making the little boy grin.

'Thank you, Dr Beth!'

'You're very welcome.'

After popping an M&M in his mouth, Cassian tilted his head to the side quizzically.

'Why doesn't Mac get any?'

Mac, still sitting on Cassian's other side, chuckled, before raising an eyebrow at the doctor teasingly.

Beth smiled, half-sheepish, half-wry, addressing Cassian.

'Well, he probably _does_ deserve some this time…' She reached into her pocket and pulled out another pack of M&Ms, handing them to Mac. '…but he's usually a pretty bad patient. Maybe he can learn from your excellent example.'

* * *

In the elevator on their way to the lab, Mac shot off a very quick text.

 _I'll be back in 45 minutes for a proper check-up, I promise. I just have to do something for Cassian first._

He got a reply from Beth almost-instantly.

 _Don't you dare be late, Angus MacGyver._

 _And let me know if there's anything I can do to help._

* * *

When Mac and Cassian walked into the lab, they found one of the benches cleared of all chemicals and experiments, instead covered with the break room microwave, an assortment of paper cups, a huge hunk of wax, some wicks, small glasses, popsicle sticks and Cassian's broken crayons.

Bozer, Riley and Jill stood behind the bench, Riley smiling, Bozer and Jill grinning. All three of them were wearing craft aprons, too, and Jill hurried over with two more in hand, passing one to Mac and helping Cassian with his, introducing herself with a grin.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Cassian was poking his tongue out a little in concentration as he carefully used a toothpick to spread a globule of wax over the top of one of his candles to make a flower pattern, just like Bozer had shown him.

He set down his toothpick proudly as he finished. It was wonky compared to Bozer's, but the Phoenix's resident movie buff bumped his fist to Cassian's with great enthusiasm and an awful lot of pride.

'That's awesome, man!'

Cassian beamed.

* * *

 **UNKNOWN SECURE LOCATION**

 **(EXTREMELY SECURE LOCATION)**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA?**

* * *

Matty stood in front of the one-way glass, watching Murdoc, who was wearing an orange jumpsuit and cuffed to the table.

He was also whistling obnoxiously.

'Honestly, Matilda, must we really play this game? We both know you're just watching and waiting…'

She heard the door to the observation room open behind her, familiar footsteps cross the room to stand beside her.

Matty looked up at her boss. He looked tired, which wasn't surprising.

He'd just gotten off a plane from Bogota, where he'd been chasing a lead.

A lead that he considered so important that he'd made himself uncontactable, even by her, gone dark completely.

Consequently, she hadn't been able to get word to him that his son had been taken by Murdoc until well after his rescue.

(Then again, it probably hadn't mattered.)

(If the lead that he was chasing was what she'd suspected he was chasing…she didn't think he'd have left it, let the trail go cold, even to rescue his son from this monster.)

(James had never been very good at understanding what was _really_ important in life.)

* * *

'Hello, Murdoc.' James paused. 'I'm Matilda's boss.'

Matty had the great pleasure of watching surprise, surprise that she was sure was genuine, appear on Murdoc's face, when James walked into the interrogation room and spoke, and Murdoc recognized him.

(It wasn't hard.)

(James _did_ look an awful lot like Mac, even if his son had inherited his mother's colouring.)

(Their dress senses and the fact that James was toying with his Swiss Army knife, using the pliers to bend a paperclip, kind of made it unmistakeable.)

Still, the assassin recovered quickly.

'It's so wonderful to meet you at last, MacGyver Senior! Or can I call you James?' Murdoc smiled wider, more darkly, and Matty knew, right then and there, that even though they had Murdoc locked up in a supposedly-inescapable prison, he was far from being backed into a corner. 'How is your son's pretty blonde friend? The new girl?'

James sat down opposite the assassin, poker face firmly on.

'Fully recovered, no thanks to you.'

Murdoc steepled his fingers together, tapping them against one another.

'Surely curiosity runs in the family…' He tapped his chin. 'Have you ever wondered, James, how a girl from Down Under winds up working for the CIA? Isn't it…odd?' Murdoc smirked. 'Especially when her name isn't _really_ Samantha Cage.'

* * *

AN: Dun, dun, dun! How many people saw that one coming?

I have a sneaking suspicion that 'Cassian discovers the truth about his father' is going to be a major plot point in the Season 3 opener…I mean, they have to make Mac change his mind about quitting the Phoenix somehow! I think he'd come back to stop Murdoc, and talking to/comforting Cassian after the kid learns the truth would probably trigger some introspection and cause him to change his mind. I maintain that it's going to have to be one of two things that makes Mac return to the Phoenix (for one last mission which turns out to be _not_ one last mission) and work with his father – either Murdoc or pursuing Jonah Walsh because Walsh killed his mother.

Anyhow – I hope you guys enjoyed my take on this potential scenario. I feel really, really terrible for Cassian, and I think that'd extend to the team as well, especially Mac and Riley, whom I think would have quite a lot of empathy for him. I also firmly believe that someone important would authorize the use of lethal force against Murdoc (he's extremely dangerous, a threat to national security and clearly cannot be safely contained), and that Jack would be ready, willing and able to use said lethal force, but that Mac would not (though he wouldn't be able to avoid thinking about the possibility, evaluating it as a potentiality and the next time Murdoc goes and kills several people and threatens his loved ones, he'll feel guilty for not killing him – or letting Jack kill him – when he had the chance). I hope you guys liked the characterization of everyone in this ep, particularly Mac and his decisions, Jack and his feelings regarding killing Murdoc, Murdoc's relationship with Cassian and Cassian himself. (We have pretty much nothing to go on about Cassian – aside from the fact that he's pretty ignorant to what his father really is and likes to draw – so I inferred and made up his characterization.)

There's no episode tag for this episode, mostly because I'm too tired to write one, so here's the press release for the next episode:

3.13, Answers to Questions. The team hunts three of Murdoc's former employers, who, he claims, know something about Cage that they should know, a secret that she's hidden from everyone, even Matty, for years. Is Murdoc telling the truth, or just messing with their heads?


	13. Answers to Questions

**MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

Mac screwed the last light bulb in place, then climbed off his perch on the back of his couch. He viewed his creation for a beat, nodded in satisfaction, and then walked out onto the deck and pulled out his phone. He set it to 'record', then held it up and pulled the rope that dropped the brick that launched the catapult to start his ravioli-making spaghetti machine.

* * *

 _Yeah, I know. I know what you're thinking. Ravioli-making spaghetti machine, has he lost it?_

 _That is completely dependent on whether I had it in the first place, which is debatable._

 _Anyway, thing is, I've been stuck at home on medical leave for the last week and a half. Jack, Bozer and Riley are in San Diego on a surveillance mission. Jill kicked me out of the lab for modifying her mass spec without asking for permission, and it's Beth's first day off in a fortnight and she's running errands and enjoying not having to deal with terrible patients. Like yours truly._

 _I'm bored. Really, really bored._

 _I've exhausted my queue of YouTube videos. None of my favourite channels have updated this week._

 _I've read a tenth of my library for the fourteenth time._

 _I've read the latest issues of New Scientist, Nature, Science, The Economist and Time Magazine._

 _I've fixed six toasters that were, according to the owner of my favourite appliances shop, toast. Now I'm out of broken toasters._

 _Ergo…ravioli-making spaghetti machine._

* * *

With a grin (his ravioli-making spaghetti machine was a resounding success), Mac uploaded the video of his creation to the chain of texts he exchanged with Valerie, along with a request for pictures of the latest car restoration project she was working on with her dad.

Then, he opened another chain of text messages and uploaded the video to that, too.

Beth appreciated fine engineering; she'd like this.

And she'd be impressed.

And there was nothing wrong with impressing a lovely lady, as his grandfather said.

Text sent, he walked into his kitchen and grabbed a bowl and a fork.

* * *

Precisely four minutes later (he was counting…and probably not just because he was bored, admittedly), his phone chimed with a reply from Beth.

 _That, Angus MacGyver, is amazing!_

 _And you must be so, so bored._

 _Are the ravioli any good? Somehow, I feel that Bozer would consider this wonderful machine of yours sacrilege, so for its sake and your sake, I hope they are!_

Mac chuckled and started typing out a reply one-handed, since he was holding a large slotted spoon in the other.

 _Well, I'll let you know in a couple of minutes. They're just finishing cooking right now._

He fished out the ravioli as his phone chimed with her instant reply.

 _Mac, are you so bored that you built a ravioli-making spaghetti machine to make yourself lunch?!_

 _On one hand, I should not be surprised, on the other hand…well, it does seem rather excessively inefficient._

He grinned sheepishly (not that she could see, but Beth _was_ right) over his bowl of ravioli (which were good, but nowhere near as good as his best friend's – he'd definitely have to disassemble the whole thing before Bozer got home, or face his wrath for more than the fact that it took up more than half the living room), then started formulating a reply. However, he got another text from Beth before he finished it.

It was a link. He clicked on it, and found a paper published two days ago in _ACS Central Science_ , authored by Michael Taylor (Beth's father, who ran his own biomedical engineering firm) and several academics and PhD students from Purdue. He skimmed the abstract, brows rising a little in interest, and kept reading, absent-mindedly eating his ravioli as he read.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, in the midst of going down a research rabbit hole, ravioli all finished, he remembered to shoot off a quick reply to her.

(He had a tendency to forget things like that. He was quite sure he'd gotten that from his dad, and was very determined to break that bad habit.)

(It wasn't going very well…but he was trying.)

 _Thanks, Beth._

* * *

The next morning, still home alone, Mac was woken at precisely 6 am by his phone ringing.

Rubbing his eyes, he grabbed his phone and answered after a glance at the caller ID.

When Matty the Hun called, you answered, immediately. No matter what.

'Sorry to wake you, Mac, but we need you to report to the Phoenix ASAP.' He was supposed to be on medical leave from active duty for another four days; his physical was scheduled for three days' time. 'Beth will meet you in the infirmary for your physical.' She paused. 'We need you back on active duty.'

With that, she hung up.

Matty never wasted words.

Mac sat up properly, now fully awake.

There was only one reason for Matty to pull him back to work early. She took the welfare of her agents as seriously as she could, considering her job.

And that reason was the man Matty and his father had spent hours upon hours over the last week and a half interrogating.

Murdoc.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Sitting on an infirmary bed, Mac buttoned up his shirt, as Beth filled in the last of her report on her tablet. She looked up as he finished doing up the last button, and spoke.

'You pass for light active duty. Just.'

She did not sound or look happy. Not at all. There was very _disapproving doctor_ look on her face, as if she was going to say something about this being highly inadvisable, in her professional opinion.

(Mac was sure that that was also her personal opinion, not that she'd voice that at work, even if she wasn't all that good at hiding it.)

He didn't blame her.

According to the very limited mission briefing she'd been given (which she'd let him have a peek of, since it was his mission and so light on details), this was a light active duty mission (mostly surveillance) on US soil.

Which he did pass medical clearance for. If only just.

Still, Beth was well aware, like every other Phoenix employee, that missions never went to plan. Light active duty rarely stayed _light._

Mac raised a shoulder in a half-shrug, giving a wry and hopefully reassuring smile.

'Bad guys don't wait for reasonable recovery times; it's part of the job.' She nodded, clearly knowing that, but also obviously suppressing a sigh, and he continued, tapping the side of his head, smile growing more wry, bringing in some more levity to the conversation. 'And I'll do my best to let this do the heavy lifting, I promise.'

That made her smile, before she turned away and bent over to grab a couple of items from under one of the infirmary nightstands.

Beth handed him something that looked like a cross between a bullet-proof vest and a corset, thin, flexible and discreet, but made up of protective plates.

'It'll provide some protection for your ribs and your kidneys.' They were still healing from Murdoc's torture. She narrowed her eyes at him, putting her hands on her hips. ' _Wear it_.' She left the _or else_ unsaid, and Mac nodded obediently. She passed him the small bag she was holding in her left hand. 'And that's additional NSAIDs, in both oral and topical form, as well as extra bandages for binding your ribs if necessary.' The medical kits were well-stocked, of course, but Beth was firmly of the opinion that a little extra never hurt. The Phoenix's infirmary did have a near-limitless budget, after all. 'Jack, Riley, Bozer and Matty, as well as Oversight, have all been informed of your activity restrictions. If Oversight gives you any problems, tell me, and I'll talk to them.'

That was said with fierce, protective determination.

It was also really rather ironic, since Beth had no idea who his dad actually was, despite meeting him at his Christmas party. As far as she knew, James MacGyver was a scientist who worked for DARPA, and as such, couldn't talk much about his work, as it was highly compartmentalized.

(As one of the Phoenix's medical team, Beth's authority actually _did_ trump Oversight's in this case. Besides, Mac was pretty sure that when it came to her patients' welfare, she wouldn't listen to authority if she was convinced they were acting against that cause anyway.)

(Unbidden, his imagination conjured an image of his father – serious, authoritative, arrogant and a man used to being _superior_ in any room – being scolded by this small, fierce woman and threatened with _Dora the Explorer_ Band-Aids, prostate exams and revocation of infirmary paperclip privileges.)

(The image was really amusing, and a little terrifying…and oddly fascinating and alluring and _hot_.)

(He was _not_ admitting that last bit. Ever. Except maybe to her. In private. One day. Maybe. If the occasion arose.)

 _Oh, get your head out of not-suitable-for-work hypotheticals and back into the game, MacGyver._

He tucked the bag under his arm and smiled at her.

'Thanks.'

She smiled back, a little wanly, but a smile nonetheless.

'Take care.'

'I always do.'

* * *

 _I'm not always careful._

 _But I do take care._

 _I guess sometimes, it might not look like it, if you're watching from a distance, but I always, always, want to come home_ _to the people I love._

* * *

A few minutes later, Mac opened the door of the war room.

The glass was frosted already.

He swallowed.

That only supported his hypothesis.

Inside, Jack, Bozer and Riley were sitting in the armchairs, Bozer perched on the arm of Riley's. Matty stood at the front of the room as usual.

Unusually, Oversight (and make no mistake, he was definitely Oversight right now) was standing on the other side of the big screen, hands clasped between his back and looking deadly serious.

 _To borrow an iconic line from Jack's second-favourite movie franchise…I have a bad feeling about this._

* * *

'… _how a girl from Down Under winds up working for the CIA? Isn't it…odd?' Murdoc smirked. 'Especially when her name isn't really Samantha Cage.'_

Mac, Jack, Bozer and Riley all stared at the screen as the video of Murdoc being interrogated by James finished playing.

Then, once the initial shock had faded somewhat, they all turned to glance at one another in a highly synchronized manner that'd have been amusing in another situation.

There were three questions in their eyes.

Did they _really_ know the woman they called Cage?

Could they trust her?

Had they been betrayed _again_?

They all turned as one to Matty, who gave a small shake of her head. She had no answers for them; in fact, had the same questions running through her mind.

Since that revelation, she and James had worked hard to try and verify Murdoc's claims and everything they knew about Cage, by interrogating the assassin further, conducting research using their very high security clearances and discreetly making enquiries to very trusted contacts.

They'd gotten nowhere.

All intel suggested that Samantha Cage was indeed Samantha Cage, former SASR 4 Squadron interrogation expert, later recruited by the CIA.

Though, they noted, details were a little sparse on the ground.

Matty turned and tapped the screen, bringing up a scrap of paper with a seemingly random series of fifteen letters and numbers written on it.

'That was the only thing we could get out of him. Murdoc _says_ it proves his claim.'

And it'd taken ten days.

It'd been an hour and a half ago that they'd gotten this sequence, whatever it meant.

(If it meant anything at all.)

Without a word, James MacGyver reached into his pocket, pulling out a pair of permanent markers. He tossed one to his son, and in silence, father and son began scribbling on opposite sides of the war room's glass walls.

Meanwhile, Riley pulled out her rig and started typing, while Bozer got up to take a closer look at the alphanumeric sequence with Matty, and Jack started pacing.

* * *

'…It's not a Caeser-type cipher…'

'…Not Enigma-based either.'

'Could it be a phone-ROTX hybrid?'

'I'll take A-L, you do M-Z.'

Mac and James both turned back to the writing-covered walls and returned to scribbling.

* * *

'It's a bank account.'

Riley gestured to her laptop, where an algorithm that she'd put together had determined that it was 99% likely that the string of letters and numbers was a bank account number. Specifically, a Swiss bank account number from a particularly secure, secretive and no-questions-asked Swiss bank.

Everyone clustered around her armchair. Jack grinned proudly at the hacker, while Matty smiled and Bozer reached out and offered her a fist-bump. Mac, his brain running a million miles per minute, hands occupied with his marker and a paperclip, managed a smile and a nod and even James looked slightly impressed (approval and satisfaction had to be read as 'impressed' with him).

Then, Bozer cracked his knuckles and gestured to himself.

'Stand back, it's the B-O-Z-E-R's time to shine!'

In a gesture of immense trust and friendship, after giving him a very, very firm and almost-as-terrifying-as-Matty-the-Hun look, Riley actually handed over her rig to him.

Bozer immediately started following the money trail.

* * *

 **SMALL-TOWN CONNECTICUT**

 **(YES, REALLY)**

 **(NOT EVERY MISSION IS SOMEWHERE INTERESTING)**

 **(THE SPY LIFE IS REALLY NOT THAT GLAMOROUS)**

* * *

Mac and Jack walked up to the blue craftsman. The house was strongly linked to the sole name that Bozer had managed to find by following the money trail. Riley's digging had so far only worked out that the name was an alias.

(She and Bozer were still working on it in the van.)

All their surveillance and research suggested that there was nothing of interest going on in this house, which wasn't unexpected.

The money trail was seven years old, after all.

Still, they had to check it out.

Mac and Jack exchanged a glance, then started up the path and rang the doorbell.

The door was answered by a tired, but cheerful-looking man a few years older than Mac, with a boy of about four or five clinging to his jeans leg. A woman sporting a messy bun and a slightly-stained T-shirt, cradling a baby in her free arm, was visible down the hall, and called out to her husband.

'Daniel, who is it?'

'Uh…'

Mac held out his hand with his most charming smile.

'I'm Scott, this is my colleague Paul, we're real estate agents. We have several clients who are interested in this area and we're wondering if you'd be interested in selling…'

Daniel shook his head with a smile, as his wife walked over, and he put his arm around her.

'No, Ellie and I bought this place almost seven years ago, to be our forever home. We got a great deal, this older guy was really keen to sell fast and move to Florida…'

* * *

'John Haworth.'

Riley pressed a key on her laptop, bringing up a photo of a man who had to be nearly seventy, with wispy white hair that was almost gone on top.

He was also wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt and appeared to be drinking some kind of cocktail on a beach.

Bozer shrugged in response to Mac and Jack's raised eyebrows.

'He's retired.'

Riley tapped a couple more keys, bringing up a rap sheet and several warrants, including an Interpol one.

'But before that, he dabbled in arms dealing, forgeries and money laundering for terrorist organizations.'

Jack let out a low whistle as he skimmed Haworth's very long list of crimes.

'Sounds like the kind of guy who'd shell out the cash to hire our least-favourite assassin.'

Mac pulled a paperclip out of his pocket and started unwinding it.

'Where is he, Riley?'

Her fingernails clacked on the keyboard, then a map of Florida appeared with a red star marking a coastal area in the southwestern part of the state.

'Pelican Bay, Florida.'

Jack grinned mischievously and clapped his partner on the shoulder.

'Better hope Beth packed us sunscreen.'

Mac rolled his eyes, and dropped the now-Florida-shaped paperclip beside Riley's laptop.

* * *

 _Let's just say…the first time Jack and I were sent on mission to Florida – Miami, specifically – I had to come up with some explanation as to how I wound up looking like a lobster after attending a conference in Maine._

 _Sometimes, I really wonder how I managed to keep my actual job description a secret from Boze for so long._

* * *

 **PHOENIX JET**

 **ON-ROUTE TO PELICAN BAY, FLORIDA**

* * *

Riley typed away on her laptop. Jack tapped an annoying rhythm that sounded vaguely like something by Guns N' Roses on the arm of his seat. Mac had a small pile of re-shaped paperclips next to him.

Bozer stopped trying to pretend to do something on his phone, sighed and spoke.

'Alright, we gonna talk about the elephant in the cabin or not?'

Riley's fingernails abruptly stopped clacking on her keyboard. Jack stopped tapping. Mac tossed down a question-mark-shaped paperclip with a sigh.

It was Riley who broke the silence.

'She's saved all of our lives and watched our backs…'

Her voice was calm and quite rational.

Jack pursed his lips.

'She was _family_.'

He sounded a little bitter, a little hurt, unsurprisingly.

Jack wore his heart on his sleeve. You could become Jack's family real quick, even in the space of a single gunfight.

And despite his and Cage's rocky start, he'd definitely considered her _family_ first of all of them.

(He and Mac had gotten the chance to know her better first, after all. And despite the fact that Mac had been much _nicer_ to Cage at first, that was mostly just Mac being _Mac_ , all wholesome nice guy…with a known weakness for beautiful, intelligent, badass women. His walls were a bit higher and a bit tougher than Jack's, for good reason.)

(Jack had had less reason to be a little bit – just a little bit - wary of her.)

(So of course it'd been him to first invite her to one of their family get-togethers.)

'Hate to be the one to say it, but so was Thornton.'

Bozer really didn't look happy to say that, but gave a half-shrug, like he felt like he had no choice.

Jack nodded, pointing at Bozer in agreement.

'You gotta admit, she was real…cagey. Kept a lot of secrets, didn't much like sharing.'

'Everyone's entitled to their secrets; we've all kept ours.'

Riley spoke matter-of-factly, mostly, but also a touch defensively. Both for Cage, and for herself, Bozer thought.

(After all, even after almost dying alongside Mac and Jack more than twenty times and playing rubber-duck-mini-golf with Bozer, giving him CGI lessons and grabbing burgers with him a couple of times after meetings with her parole officer, she'd kept her cards so close to her chest that when The Collective came after her mom, it'd been a near miss from disaster that'd almost ruined the family she'd found.)

Mac sighed, running a hand through his hair, staring at the question-mark shaped paperclip.

His gut told him that even if Cage had lied to them, they _had_ known the real her (or at least as much of the real her as someone like Cage – master interrogator and spy at heart - was willing to show), and they _could_ trust her, when it came down to it. She had their backs.

The problem was, he wasn't sure if he could or should trust his gut.

He was well aware of his weakness for attractive women.

And…well, while he wasn't very talented at dating or correctly interpreting social cues, interactions and nuances, he was quite sure that there'd been something between them. An attraction, a level of _connection,_ albeit from time-to-time a touch unsteady or inconstant, at least from his side (Cage was a lot harder to read than a normal woman), before she'd returned to Australia and, honestly, mostly cut herself out of their lives, occasional Skype calls and emails and that Christmas card aside.

Bias was a major concern.

Then again, his gut _had_ ultimately been right about Nikki (even if he _was_ well aware of how foolish he'd been during the Chrysalis saga), _and_ about Frankie still being alive, _and_ even about the fact that Allie really _had_ liked him and not just used him, like his brain had loudly insisted (his brain had won that argument)...

He sighed again in frustration.

He really didn't know what to think.

Still, he spoke, falling back on logic and rationality.

'If Murdoc is lying, then this is all moot.'

He couldn't quite keep the hope that that was the case out of his voice.

Jack, Bozer and Riley all nodded in agreement, sharing that hope, then Jack pointed at the blonde.

'Right up his alley, setting the cat amongst the pigeons, sending us on some wild goose chase to keep us distracted from his real endgame…'

Bozer picked up the thread.

'…or sowing the seeds of distrust and conflict and _drama_ as set-up for his real endgame…'

Riley quirked an eyebrow at Bozer, but shrugged and added her two cents.

'…Or maybe this is a trap and part of his real endgame.'

Mac gave a bitter snort of laughter.

'You never know with Murdoc.'

* * *

 **PELICAN BAY**

 **FLORIDA**

* * *

'...You gonna be alright, son?'

As he and Mac strode through the local park on their way towards the house that then backed onto Haworth's house, Jack gestured subtly (or so he thought) to his partner's torso.

Mac nodded, rolling his eyes with fond exasperation.

'I'll be fine, Jack.' He spread his arms. 'Beth cleared me.'

'Yeah, _just_.'

Jack was protective of his partner. It was literally his job description.

So, of course, he wasn't exactly happy that Mac was coming back to active duty early, cutting short his recovery from being _tortured_ at the hands of his _arch-nemesis._

Still, Jack knew to pick his battles.

(Anyone who looked after Mac had to know that.)

There was no way that Mac would stay at the Phoenix, safe and sound and not compromising his recovery, while the rest of them pursued this lead.

Not with both Murdoc _and_ Cage caught up in it.

(Jack didn't think that even Beth could keep him there. Not even if she were actually willing to use her _feminine wiles_ , as well as her doctor-y logic and threats and authority.)

(Mac's priorities were either really good or really bad, depending on how you looked at it.)

So, instead, Jack would just make sure to keep an extra-special eye on the kid. Take extra care of him, 'cause he wasn't convinced that Mac would.

Hence, as the two of them started climbing the fence that led into Haworth's neighbour's yard, Jack hardly took his eyes off his partner's side.

* * *

As he climbed, Mac rolled his eyes again, a little more exasperated, but still fond.

Jack was a deadly, ex-Delta Force, ex-CIA covert operative. One of the best in the business.

He was _also_ a mother hen.

* * *

 **HAWORTH'S HOUSE**

 **PELICAN BAY**

 **FLORIDA**

* * *

'…honey, I'm telling you, this is the place!'

'It doesn't look like it!'

'It's an Airbnb! It's not meant to look like a hotel! That's the whole point!'

Bozer and Riley, both wearing stereotypical on-holiday-in-Florida clothing (he had on a Hawaiian shirt, she was wearing a floral sundress) and fake wedding rings, bickered loudly just outside Haworth's fancy HGTV-worthy beach house.

'…trust me, I know what I'm doing!' Bozer began searching the fence line. 'We just gotta find one of those little safes to get the keys; I got the code for it on my phone…'

Riley rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, decidedly not helping her 'husband'.

'You said you knew what you were doing just two months ago, when you and your best friend were building that huge light-up centrepiece for our wedding…and he wound up in the ER!'

'Where he met his now-girlfriend!' Bozer spread his arms wide. 'It's gonna be a great story for them to tell their kids one day!'

Riley opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted by a loud, authoritative male voice yelling at them.

'Oi! This isn't an Airbnb, get out of here!'

She rolled her eyes and shot Bozer an _I-told-you-so_ look, while Bozer bristled and pulled a print-out from Airbnb out of his pocket, which depicted Haworth's house.

'Yeah it is!'

* * *

Mac and Jack, hidden in a tree several feet from the fence between Haworth and his neighbour's house, exchanged a glance as the blonde lowered his makeshift binoculars.

Haworth's security was all rushing towards the front gate, to deal with a pair of unruly honeymooners.

Both of them smiled as they made the jump out of the tree and into Haworth's yard.

Bozer and Riley (usually led by Bozer) were great at causing a dramatic and loud distraction. They'd used that skill to great effect on several missions.

Bickering honeymooners was usually their go-to.

(They did it so well, after all.)

* * *

'…You're gonna hear from my lawyer about this!'

Riley rolled her eyes as a security guard dragged her 'husband' off, allowing herself to be pulled away by another equally-burly man.

'You don't have a lawyer!'

'I will as soon as we get out of here, sweet-pea!'

'I've _told you_ not to call me that!'

* * *

'Come on, brother, hurry up…'

Mac rolled his eyes as he picked the lock to Haworth's study. He was just as aware as Jack was that Bozer and Riley's distraction was over; he could hear the feed from Bozer's modified watch and Riley's modified necklace just as well through his earpiece.

Instead of deigning to reply, he simply clicked the last tumbler into place and opened the door, quirking an eyebrow at his partner.

* * *

'…uh, how many percent we got left to go on that doo-dad?'

Jack pulled his head back from where he'd poked it out the door to check for incoming. Mac, who was searching the study and photographing anything he thought might be of use, glanced at the computer, which was currently being hacked and its contents downloaded using a special USB made by some Phoenix techs with input from Riley.

'Uh…we're at 65%...'

'Well, you gotta find a way to speed that thingy up, brother.' Jack jabbed his thumb at the door. 'We're gonna get incoming soon enough.'

Mac glanced around the room, his thinking-face appearing, before being replaced a second later with his _I-have-an-idea_ face.

Quickly, he pulled books and trinkets from a bookshelf, then started unscrewing the shelf with his Swiss Army knife.

'Jack, grab those crystal glasses.' He gave a little smirk. 'I can't speed up the download…but I _can_ slow them down.'

* * *

 **TWELVE MINUTES LATER**

* * *

'Oh no, not _again_ …'

Jack groaned as Mac, one foot up on the balcony railing, carefully stowed the USB, his phone and Jack's phone into a small waterproof pouch the Phoenix had provided. The Texan looked down at the swimming pool below them.

Mac rolled his eyes and put his hands on the railing.

'We're lucky it's there.' He gestured behind them, to the barricaded door (which had a trap on either side – Haworth's security, from the noises they were making, were still dealing with the first trap). 'Or would you rather fight your way through that?'

With that, Mac leapt off the balcony and into the swimming pool.

Jack muttered under his breath.

'I swear, Boze makes him watch too many movies…'

Then, he too jumped off the balcony.

* * *

Mac and Jack, both sopping wet, had _just_ reached the fence when two of Haworth's guards found them.

(Judging by the lack of crystal fragments or ink on them, they hadn't been caught up in Mac's trap.)

The four men watched each other in a stand-off for a moment, before Jack grinned and raised his fists.

'You go left, I'll go right, brother?'

And with that, he went for the guy on the right, going straight for a right hook to the jaw. Of course, the man dodged, which put him exactly where Jack wanted him to be. He kicked the man in the back of the knee, then kneed him hard in the solar plexus when he stumbled. Then, he went for the head-butt, knocking the guy out. He fell at Jack's feet like a sack of potatoes, and Jack immediately focused his attention on helping his partner out.

(He'd been aware of Mac and the other guy in the back of his mind as he focused on his own fight, had realized that Mac had, being Mac, used his brain over brawn, waiting for the guard to make the first move, then cleverly using the man's own momentum to fling him into the fence, producing an advantage for him to press.)

As Jack turned, Mac rammed his foot (with precise force and angle) into the side of the guard's knee, causing the man to stumble badly, allowing the blonde to cleanly knock him to the ground. He fell hard, winded and dazed, but managed to strike a glancing blow (Jack wasn't sure it was deliberate; the guy was pretty out of it) to the side of Mac's torso, right at the bottom of his ribs.

Jack cursed internally, but didn't waste any time jumping the fence, Mac right on his heels, then hot-footing it through the neighbour's backyard and the park.

Getting out of there with the intel was their number one priority.

For now, anyway.

* * *

Finally, Mac and Jack slowed to a walk as they reached the rendezvous point, confident that they'd lost any potential tails.

Jack gestured to his partner's torso.

'You okay, brother? I saw that guy get in a hit…' Mac rolled his eyes, looking remarkably like a teenager exasperated by his overbearing, over-protective and overly-worried parent. He tugged up his shirt (already half-untucked) to show Jack the protective vest Beth had given him. The older man looked relieved (a serious expression) for a beat, before grinning teasingly (a very much not-serious expression) and socking the younger lightly in the arm. 'I'm sorry, brother, never thought I'd say anything like this…but she's too good for you.'

As emphasis, he clapped Mac on the shoulder in commiseration. Mac chuckled, and grinned back at him.

'Eh, maybe she'll take pity on me.' His grin turned teasing, mischievous, a bit more like a smirk. 'There's got to be a reason why Diane puts up with you.'

Jack snorted, joining in that bicker and banter that kept them sane, despite the high pressure, violence and darkness of their jobs.

'I'll have you know I got plenty of charms, thank you very much!

'Well, those charms certainly don't include your singing abilities, your fashion sense, your cooking skills or your storytelling capabilities…'

* * *

 **PHOENIX JET**

 **PRIVATE AIRSTRIP**

 **NEAR PELICAN BAY**

 **FLORIDA**

* * *

Riley plugged the USB into her rig, and started typing immediately. After about a minute, she let out a low whistle.

'He might be retired, but Haworth hasn't let his cybersecurity slip.' She gestured to the screen. 'This is going to take me at least a few hours to decrypt and go through.'

Jack, who was leaning against the doorway into the cabin, arms crossed, gave a slow, almost-childish grin with more than a hint of a smirk in it.

'Well, we got some time to kill, you thinking what I'm thinking, brother?'

He gestured at Mac, who was leaning against the other side of the doorway, toying with a paperclip which was taking the shape of a shirt (assumedly a Hawaiian shirt, even with the lack of colour). The blonde quirked an eyebrow.

'Pick up a _souvenir_ for Matty?'

Jack rubbed his hands together.

'Never hurts to stay on the boss's good side.'

* * *

 **A ROAD**

 **(A DESERTED ROAD…HANDILY)**

 **PELICAN BAY**

 **FLORIDA**

* * *

Jack, dressed as a local police officer, complete with an impressively huge moustache to disguise his face (thanks to Bozer), pulled over Haworth's vehicle, stepping over to the driver's window.

The chauffer/guard driving lowered the window with an artificially polite expression on his face.

'What's the matter, officer?'

Jack bent his knees, lowering his face to the same level as the driver's, taking care not to block the window.

'One of your taillights is out, sir.'

In the back seat, Haworth paid no attention to what seemed like a routine stop, continuing to read a local racing guide.

The guard's brow furrowed.

'It was fine when we left…'

Jack shrugged.

'Must've gone out on the road, sir.' He gestured to the back of the car. 'Take a look if you want.'

The guard glanced at his employer, who just waved a hand, engrossed in the odds for the afternoon's races.

The man got out and walked around to the back of the vehicle with Jack. He'd just bent down to take a look at the offending taillight when he gave a gasp of pain. He reached up to his neck and pulled out the makeshift dart (it was made of a syringe needle from the med kit, a twig and some cleverly-cut paper). He looked at Jack, eyes wide, and tried to stagger forward and attack the Phoenix agent, but keeled over, only half-conscious, before he could.

(Mac had spent an hour and a half while Bozer got Jack into costume and Jack came up with a backstory for Adrian Thompson, Florida Police, mixing and boiling extracts from tree leaves and bark and pills and creams from the medical kit using the jet's electric kettle, muttering to himself and drawing on scraps of paper what Jack recognized as pictures of molecules, but didn't understand beyond that.)

(Bozer had muttered something about his BFF resembling the love child of a Dramione – whatever that was - kid and Dr Frankenstein.)

(Mac had said that the yellow syrupy stuff he'd made was a very fast-acting, extremely potent sedative.)

(Jack hadn't quite realized it'd be _that_ fast.)

He walked back around to the front of the vehicle as if nothing was wrong.

'…we'll try turning it on and off, see if that works…' He reached into the car as if to turn the taillights on and off, but instead lowered the window next to Haworth. 'Oh, sorry, sir…'

Haworth looked up suspiciously. He stared at Jack for a moment, before he made to reach for the seat in front of him, scrabbling for what Jack assumed was a secret compartment with a weapon in it.

But his guard had been down for too long.

Before Haworth could open the compartment, a dart struck him in the neck, and seconds later, he was slumped over in his seat.

Thirty seconds later, he was sound asleep.

Jack turned and peered into the trees.

'All good, brother!'

His partner, wearing a makeshift sniper's disguise (a straw hat covered in leaves, plus an old fish net wrapped around his shoulders, also covered in leaves) and holding a DIY blowgun (pretty much an old piece of thin PVC pipe), popped out from his hidey-hole at the foot of a tree, behind some bushes.

Mac shrugged off the disguise and discarded the blowgun, then jogged over to the unconscious, snoring guard, checking the man's pulse, before dragging him into the vehicle and securing his wrists with the handcuffs he found in the man's pocket. Meanwhile, Jack secured Haworth's wrists and climbed into the driver's seat.

He grinned as Mac hopped into the front passenger seat, and started the ignition.

'Matty's gonna like this _so_ much more than a snow globe…'

* * *

 **PHOENIX JET**

 **SOMEWHERE OVER ARIZONA**

 **ON-ROUTE TO LA**

* * *

'…Hey, Riley, you want some coffee?'

Bozer walked from the cabin area (where Mac and Jack were keeping an eye on Haworth and his guard, who were still down for the count) into what he personally thought of as Riley's mobile Bat-Cave (though, more accurately, she was probably Oracle while Mac and Jack were Batman and Robin…which maybe made him Alfred?), carrying a cup of coffee.

She'd been working for hours. He figured some caffeine wouldn't hurt at all.

Riley looked up from her rig, and raised a sceptical eyebrow at the coffee.

(Mac had used the kettle to make an extremely fast-acting, extremely potent sedative, after all.)

Bozer grinned reassuringly.

'I washed it out twice. Then disinfected it with the alcohol wipes from the med kit. Then washed it out five more times.'

Riley gave a snort, but took the cup of coffee gratefully.

'Probably overkill, Boze.'

He shrugged a little sheepishly.

'Better safe than sorry.'

She took a sip and smiled at him.

'Thanks.'

He smiled back.

'No probs.' Bozer gestured with his head to the screens in front of her. 'Anything I can help out with?'

Riley pursed her lips.

'I'm still decrypting most of it, but…'

She typed for a beat, pulling up some financial records on the other terminal, and Bozer's smile widened as he did some 'warm-up exercises', waggling his fingers vigorously.

Riley snorted again and rolled her eyes with fond exasperation, then turned back to her work, as Bozer settled down next to her and started typing.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…Eight and a half years ago, the CIA uncovered an operation smuggling weapons from the US to Australia, supplying several home-grown terror cells. The operation was run by Haworth, a US national, Mitchell Donner, Australian national, and Clarke Keys, New Zealand national.'

Riley, perched on the arm of one of the chairs in the war room, her laptop on her lap, explained to Mac, Jack and Bozer what she'd found in the records Haworth had kept, gesturing to the pictures of the three men on the screen. Haworth looked easily thirty years older than the other two.

Matty, who was standing by the screen, continued, tapping the big screen to bring up some documents stamped 'top secret'.

'The op to bring down the ring was a joint CIA-SASR 4 Squadron operation, codenamed Shearwater.' At the mention of Cage's former employer, Mac's hands, which had been fiddling with a paperclip, stilled. 'Unfortunately, one of the agents involved was a mole.' The image on the screen changed to a photo of a middle-aged man, his hairline beginning to recede, in a smart suit. 'David Parkes sold out his team to Haworth, Donner and Keys…'

Mac's fingers started re-shaping the paperclip again as he spoke.

'…who hired Murdoc to take out the team.'

Matty nodded, tapping the screen to bring up a list of eight names. First names only, with the surnames redacted, and no photos. Clearly, Riley hadn't been able to get hold of non-redacted versions of these documents, which meant that they had to be really, really, really classified and compartmentalized (possibly existing only in hard copy). One of the names was David; Mac assumed that referred to David Parkes.

'According to all official records, he succeeded. All eight agents are deceased. Parkes committed suicide when the team made him.' Matty paused, glancing up at the list of names for a moment. 'And according to official records, they didn't die in vain.'

Riley picked up the thread again.

'They managed to take down Haworth, Keys and Donner's operation before Murdoc…finished the job.'

There was silence for a moment, before Bozer spoke up, quieter than usual and hesitant.

'So…does this mean that Murdoc was just messing with us?' He gestured at the screen, at the list of names that none of them recognized. 'I mean, this doesn't have anything to do with Cage, right, since she's definitely alive...'

Mac tossed the paperclip (which had become a tangle) onto the coffee table, while Jack spoke, shaking his head.

'I dunno, Boze…Murdoc says her name ain't Cage…' Three of the names on the list were female. '…and SASR 4 Squadron-CIA joint op? Murdoc had a point; really is weird for the CIA to recruit an Aussie, joint op might go a long way to explaining it.' He glanced over at Mac. 'And wouldn't be the first time the CIA was involved in faking someone's death.' Jack's expression grew set, a little grim. 'Too much of a coincidence; it's giving me the heebie-jeebies.'

Mac nodded in agreement, already mutilating another paperclip.

'It's too improbable.' He glanced at Matty. 'We need to bring in Donner and Keys.'

They needed more information.

Their boss nodded in agreement, as Riley showed Mac her laptop screen; she was already searching, with no luck.

They appeared to have gone to ground even more than Haworth.

Matty straightened her back a little, and started striding out of the room.

'Leave it to me.'

* * *

Matty strode into the interrogation room where Haworth, still in his Hawaiian shirt, was seated and secured to the table.

She pulled the folder out from under her arm, tossed it onto the table, and then pulled out a photo of Keys and a photo of Donner, before looking expectantly at him, faux-pleasantness in her expression.

Haworth shrugged, looking confused.

She did admit, he was a good actor, a good liar. Good at this business.

But he wasn't better than her.

'I have no idea who these guys are, and no idea why you've brought me here, I'm just-'

Matty snorted derisively, then leaned forward, planting her hands on the table.

'Drop the fuddy-duddy retiree act, John.' She looked him up and down, still derisive. 'You might look the part, but we both know that appearances can be deceiving.' She leaned back, that fake pleasantry back on her face. 'Now, I just need one thing from you: how can I contact your former business partners?'

He was silent for a long, long time, staring her down. Matty stared right back, and then, slowly, let that side of her, the part of her who'd broken stronger, scarier men in their prime, show. Just a glimpse. Just in her eyes, some of the lines on her face.

He swallowed.

'I'm retired.'

Matty arched an eyebrow at him.

'And you expect me to believe that you took your ear off the ground, giving your _many, many_ enemies a chance to take pot-shots at you?'

He swallowed again. She slowly peeled back that pleasant mask, letting him see what was underneath, again, then leaned forward once more.

'We can do this the easy way…or the hard way. Your choice.'

He swallowed again.

Impressively, he held his resolve for several minutes.

Then, he opened his mouth.

* * *

 **SANTA MONICA PIER**

 **LA**

* * *

Bozer, wearing a fifties-style diner uniform, grinned at the little boy as he handed him a stick of colourful cotton candy, returning to stirring the warm spinning sugar, the grin still on his face, seemingly scouting the surrounds for potential customers to entice.

'No sign of either of them here, guys.'

* * *

Riley, dressed in a stylish maxi-dress, an equally-fashionable leather jacket on, along with a wide-brimmed suede hat and boots, strummed on a guitar, singing covers of pop songs while apparently looking into the distance, occasionally glancing around to try and encourage passers-by to drop some change into her guitar case.

She strummed a few chords in a pre-arranged signal.

There was no sign of Donner or Keys near her either.

* * *

Jack licked his ice-cream as he strode down the boardwalk, looking every bit a tourist in his _I heart LA_ T-shirt and big sunglasses, appearing to be gawking at just about everything around him.

When he finished his treat, he tossed the napkin in a nearby trash can, speaking just loud enough for his earpiece to pick it up.

'Not a hide or hair of 'em.'

* * *

Mac, wearing slightly baggy jeans and a T-shirt with an abstract Rubik's cube on it, kept juggling several colourful balls as he grinned at a pair of pre-teen boys who put a couple of dollars into the fedora at his feet.

He threw one around his back, without dropping any of the other four, as he kept pretending to look idly around, trying to get more people to stop and watch his show.

Then, in the corner of his eye, he caught a glance of a man he swore was Donner. He forced himself to not look his way, and was rewarded by Donner walking further into his field of view, accompanied by a dark-haired man who matched Keys' height and build, who had his back to Mac.

Then, somehow, Donner looked directly at him. Looking away immediately would have broken his cover, so Mac just grinned and swapped hands without dropping a ball, playing the part of a juggler showing off a trick.

It didn't work. Donner tugged the sleeve of the man next to him (who Mac confirmed as Keys when he turned slightly), and the two of them ran, heading for the less-enclosed streets, rather than further down the pier.

He shoved two of the juggling balls into his pockets, letting the rest of them fall to the ground, and took off after them,

'I've got them heading east from my position, I've been made!'

* * *

Jack had been debating buying a corn dog (it suited his cover…plus he hadn't had one in ages, since everyone had taken the whole Jack's-cholesterol-levels-are-edging-towards-high thing really seriously) when he heard his partner call out over his earpiece.

Immediately, he took off running west to intercept, corn dog and cholesterol levels forgotten.

'Coming, brother, we'll try and cut them off!'

* * *

As he ran, Mac grabbed a bunch of balloons from next to some vendor's stall, ignoring the man's shouts of protests (he'd already used the juggling balls, to not much effect, unfortunately). Using his Swiss Army knife, he cut the balloons off the weights, letting them drift away. He lifted up the weights by the remaining strings, and started swinging them over his head.

When he'd built up enough momentum, he aimed carefully and tossed the makeshift bola at Keys' and Donner's legs, successfully making them stumble and slowing them down.

As he bore down on them from behind, Jack skidded into view in front of them, his gun in hand and pointed at Donner.

Keys and Donner finished untangling themselves from Mac's bola, and quickly sprinted down an alleyway, the partners in hot pursuit.

* * *

Mac seized a full trash bag and swung it at Keys' face, causing the man to stumble backwards and allowing the blonde to stick a leg out and trip him, causing him to stumble further, to his knees. Mac pressed his advantage, wrapping an arm firmly around Keys' neck to cut off his air supply and knock him out.

Meanwhile, Jack grappled with Donner, his gun having been kicked out of his wrist and under a dumpster by the smuggler. He head-butted the man, then, as he recovered from being dazed, Jack shouted _yippee-kay-yay_ and charged towards the brick wall, Donner in front of him. The arms dealer hit the wall with a satisfying, meaty thwack.

Keys struggled hard, and eventually, using his superior weight and leverage from his position, managed to dislodge Mac's arm, flinging the blonde into the brick wall. It wasn't a hard hit, but Keys was much faster than his rather-substantial weight suggested, and pressed his advantage, delivering a hard punch to Mac's ribs as he rebounded off the wall, trying to get his arm around Keys again.

Even though the protective vest, the punch, with almost three hundred pounds of very angry arms dealer behind it, really, really hurt his still-tender ribs, and Mac gave a grunt of pain.

Keys smirked darkly, having found a weakness, and Mac changed his strategy, keeping himself behind the taller, bigger man using his greater speed and agility, then, when the moment was right, grabbing him from behind.

At the same time, Jack and Donner were wrestling on the ground, Jack trying to prevent Donner from reaching below the dumpster for his weapon. He had Donner pinned to the ground, one arm under him, but the other was free, and Donner was managing to scoot along, closer to the dumpster and the gun, despite Jack's full weight resting on him.

Keys slammed Mac, who was pretty much on his back, into the dumpster, the metal ridge of the top striking his lower back, too close for comfort to his almost-recovered kidneys. He couldn't help but grunt in pain again, and Keys managed to loosen his grip by repeating the action.

Then, the huge man undid his jacket as he slammed Mac into the dumpster for the third time, before twisting free of the garment and taking off.

At the same time, Donner suddenly stopped going for the gun, startling Jack, and instead kneed him very hard in the backside, then concentrated on throwing him off.

He took off down the alleyway as Jack retrieved his gun and rolled to his feet.

He fired off two shots, but they were already too far away for them to be effectual; one missed entirely, the other grazed Donner's calf.

The Texan swore, before turning to his partner, who was leaning against the dumpster, wincing, and holding Keys' jacket.

'Son-'

'I'm fine.'

Mac took off down the alleyway after the pair without another word, and Jack sprinted after him.

(Mac was definitely not fine, but they had bigger fish to fry at the moment.)

They reached the main street, which was packed with masses of people, and looked from right to left and back again.

'Riley-'

The hacker's voice was frustrated when she responded.

'I've lost them.'

It was Mac's turn to curse, and he started searching Keys' jacket pockets, hoping against all hope to find some kind of clue, some kind of hint.

His hands closed around a USB.

* * *

 **PHOENIX VAN**

 **ON-ROUTE TO PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'We were set up.'

Mac stared at the USB as Jack drove them back to the Phoenix. Via the rear-view mirror, his three teammates exchanged a glance.

They didn't like it at all, but Mac was probably right.

Keys and Donner had made him so easily.

And why in the world would Keys bring a USB (heavily, heavily encrypted – Riley had taken an attempt at breaking it while the others updated Matty, but she was pretty sure it'd take her even longer than Haworth's to break) to what was supposedly a meet with Haworth?

And why would he leave it behind so readily, without any attempt to retrieve it, when he and Donner had made their retreat?

When he stopped at a red light, Jack glanced at his partner, who was lost in thought, down a rabbit hole, in a way that Jack knew spelled trouble.

'Murdoc?'

Mac just nodded, and spoke, extremely, extremely sardonically. Bitterly.

'Who else?'

* * *

 **TWENTY TWO HOURS LATER**

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Mac (who looked like he hadn't slept a wink and immediately grabbed a paperclip from the bowl), Jack (who looked like he'd just gone several rounds with a punching bag) and Bozer (nursing a large cup of coffee) all filed into the war room, to find Matty and Riley standing on either side of the screen, their expressions grim.

The taller woman tapped the screen.

'This is what we found on that USB.'

The big screen filled with photos of a blonde, blue-eyed girl. There were thirteen of what were clearly school photos, in which the girl ranged in age from about five to eighteen. There were photos of a high school soccer team, the blonde girl in the middle, wearing a captain's armband, and even a photo of her from a local newspaper that the caption indicated belonged with a profile of the local high school's regionals-winning team's captain.

The girl looked familiar. Very, very familiar. Far younger than the woman they knew, but nonetheless her.

But the name under each and every one of the photos was one they'd never heard before.

Wordlessly, Jack, Mac and Bozer all turned to Riley, then to Matty, who just nodded, then back to Riley again. It was the hacker who spoke.

'I've quadruple-checked.' She gestured at the photos. 'They're legit.' She swallowed. 'Her name isn't Samantha Cage. It's Tasha Sommers.'

There was silence for a long moment, then Mac tossed another question-mark shaped paperclip onto the table.

' _Why?_ '

He wasn't even sure what he was asking. Why did she change her name? Why did she hide it from them, her _family_? Why did Murdoc even reveal this to them in the first place?

Matty caught his eye, her eyes sympathetic, even comforting.

'You can ask her yourself.' She reached out and tapped the screen, bringing up an image taken from the Australian Border Force, gaze turning business-like again. It showed a bulky, tall, dark-haired man – Keys – and his smaller, lighter-haired companion – Donner. 'They passed through Immigration in Melbourne an hour and a half ago. I got in touch with an old Australian contact, who put me in touch with…let's just say, an Australian counterpart. You'll be working a joint mission with their best agent.'

She tapped the screen again, bringing up an image of the woman they knew as Samantha Cage.

Or had thought they knew.

* * *

AN: Strap yourselves in…it's going to be a bumpy ride! I hope you guys liked the way I've taken this storyline, and the responses that everyone had were in-character. I didn't want them to freak out entirely immediately – after all, I'd think they'd still trust Cage more than Murdoc, and they all know Murdoc's a serial liar, and I wanted them to be uncertain. Cage was family, and as I think the whole Nikki/Thornton/Chrysalis storyline, as well as the Riley-goes-rogue and Matty-knew-Mac's-dad-and-has-lied-to-him-the-whole-time storylines show, the team doesn't give up on family all that easily. They have doubts, they throw thoughts and theories out there, but without really irrevocable proof, they're not going to label them a traitor (Thornton was arguably a bit of an exception, but I think they tried to demonstrate later via comparison with Matty that she simply wasn't as close to them, wasn't _really_ part of the family…). I also firmly maintain that Jack was the first to consider Cage part of the family, even if Mac was nicer to her and accepted her as part of the team first – I think Jack wears his heart on his sleeve and gets attached hard and fast, while Mac is 'nicer/sweeter' and has more of a bleeding heart, but also has more trust issues. So, I guess Mac will let you in a certain distance faster, but will keep some walls up for longer, while once you get through some of Jack's walls, you get through all of them (and he starts oversharing!), if that makes sense?

Cage's real name comes from the character that Isabel Lucas played on the iconic Australian soap opera _Home and Away_ (Tasha) and the location in which it is set (Summer Bay).

In other news – I am officially a published author! A published scientific author, that is! A paper on which I am a very junior author was recently published. Maybe one day I'll be able to approach Mac (or Jill or Frankie) in number of publications!

There will be no episode tag for _Detours_ for this ep, but here's the press release for the next episode, in which the team comes to my home town!

3.14, Team to Australia. With Cage's secret in the open, the team heads to Melbourne, Australia, reuniting with their former teammate, in pursuit of Murdoc's former employers…whom Cage has a history with. But can they trust her?


	14. Team to Australia

AN: Thoughts on the real 3.01, Improvise, at the end of this chapters with spoilers. Lots and lots of spoilers.

And I hope that the title of this story now makes more sense…I always knew that they'd take a different path from what I planned out, so consider this some kind of other universe, where the reality of _MacGyver_ took a different path… :P

* * *

 **PHOENIX JET**

 **SOMEWHERE OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN**

 **ON-ROUTE TO MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA**

* * *

Mac absent-mindedly re-shaped a paperclip into the continent of Australia, mind whirring.

It'd been two days since they'd learned Cage's real name, and he still was no clearer as to what to even _think_ about the situation.

Riley and Jill had spent the two days trawling through every single bit of documentation regarding Samantha Cage/Tasha Sommers. Matty and Oversight had pulled some strings and gotten them access to information _way_ above their security clearances.

All records really did state that Tasha Sommers was killed by an unknown assailant just after completing her ill-fated team's mission.

Samantha Cage first appeared in CIA records _prior_ to Tasha Sommers' recorded death, her identity having been cleverly and expertly backstopped.

There was nothing in any of the files to even suggest that name and supposed death aside, Cage or Tasha or Sommers or whatever they were meant to call her had ever lied to or deceived Matty or any of them.

There was nothing to suggest that she could not be trusted, didn't have their backs.

Mac's gut agreed with that.

But he couldn't stop that niggling doubt at the forefront of his mind either.

He'd been lied to and betrayed too many times to _not_ have those doubts.

Riley, phone in hand, walked back into the main cabin, plopping down into her seat, looking rather down.

(Billy had been due to pay her a visit in LA, stay with her for a few days. Riley had taken a couple of days of leave from the Phoenix to spend with him, but then all of this had happened…and she'd had no choice but to cancel on him.)

(Billy got it, he really did, but she knew he wasn't happy. She wasn't either. And it irked both of them that she couldn't tell him exactly why or where she was going.)

(Still, every relationship had its struggles. Theirs just had some particularly thorny and unique ones.)

(And it was worth it. Oh, so worth it.)

Bozer just smiled sympathetically at her and tossed her a packet of M&Ms from the med kit. Jack reached out and clapped his surrogate daughter on the shoulder.

'Chin up, Ri. Least we might get to go for a kangaroo ride!'

Mac, who had pulled himself out of his spiral of thoughts when Riley had plopped down into her seat, huffed out a very long-suffering sigh.

(He might have exaggerated just a little, just to help cheer Riley up a bit.)

'They don't ride kangaroos in Australia, Jack.'

Similarly, everything was not upside down, toilets did not flush the opposite way because they were in the Southern Hemisphere, drop bears weren't real, and Australians, unlike what Jack claimed, did not throw shrimp on the barbecue, they barbecued prawns (which were what Americans called shrimp – Australians called smaller forms of those crustaceans shrimp). Koalas weren't bears, Australians didn't live off Vegemite (the Internet informed him that the reason why many foreigners disliked it was because they put an excessive quantity on toast, but Mac personally wasn't keen to give it a go regardless), and while Australia had many dangerous creatures, they were practically certainly not going to be killed by one, especially given that Melbourne was a very urban city of about 4.5 million people.

Jack's expression fell comically.

(He clearly got what Mac was trying to do, and was rolling with the improvised plan.)

(That was one of Mac's favourite things about his partner. Sure, he complained about it all the time, but at the end of the day, he always rolled with Mac's improvisation.)

'So the Internet was _lying_ to me?'

Bozer snorted.

'Yeah, real surprising, Jack…'

Riley cracked a smile, shaking her head with fond exasperation.

(She knew what they were up to. She really appreciated it.)

Meanwhile, Mac took pity on the still-apparently-deeply-wounded Jack.

'Well, Australia _did_ once declare war on emus…and lost.'

Bozer, Jack and Riley stared at him, unblinking for a moment, then all looked very incredulous.

' _No_.'

' _No way,_ Mac.'

'You're messing with us, brother.'

Mac shook his head with a little smirk.

'No, I'm telling the truth. In 1932, Australia declared war on emus in a district of Western Australia. Despite valiant efforts on the part of the Royal Australian Artillery, the emus were victorious.'

Jack shook his head as Bozer stared at Mac as if he'd grown a second head.

'Mac, bro, that's just…unbelievable! If I made a movie with that plot, everybody would say it's ludicrous!'

Mac spread his palms wide with a shrug.

'Well, you know what they say: the truth's stranger than fiction, Boze.'

Riley, meanwhile, was typing frantically on her phone. She made a noise of surprise, and turned her screen to face Jack and Bozer, where they could see the Wikipedia page for the Great Emu War.

It was _real_.

Jack, Bozer and Riley all stared at each other for a long moment, then looked back at Mac, who was smirking, then burst into hysterical laughter.

Mac smiled, shaking his head with a little chuckle at their reaction, as he pulled out another paperclip from his pocket, which soon took the shape of an emu.

 _I suppose the question now is: why do I know about the Great Emu War?_

 _The answer: I was bored._

 _I'll read just about anything when I'm bored._

 _I know the ingredients lists of most common children's breakfast cereals sold in the mid-90s because I used to get bored when Mom took me grocery shopping._

 _They've yet to come in handy, but you never know…maybe I'll use that information one day._

* * *

 **ESSENDON AIRPORT**

 **MELBOURNE**

 **AUSTRALIA**

* * *

She was waiting for them on the tarmac when they disembarked, wearing khakis and a crisp cream shirt, hair in a messy knot, looking every bit the woman they knew.

The five of them stared at each other for a long, long moment, full of awkwardness and tension and not knowing what to say.

(Hell, they didn't even know what to call her.)

He might have been imagining things, but Mac swore that as calm as she looked, there was something guilty, regretful in her eyes.

Eventually, she broke the silence, seemingly reading them all as well as ever.

'Call me Cage.' She gave a small smile. 'Welcome to Australia.'

They all managed a smile and a nod in return, and then Cage turned on her heel and led them away from the jet, towards a waiting chopper.

* * *

When the chopper landed, in the middle of a field on what appeared to be a farm just past the outskirts of Melbourne, Cage smiled at the pilot.

'Thanks, Gus.'

He grinned back, the smile slightly crooked, and waved as his passengers disembarked.

'Catch you later, Sammy!'

She arched an eyebrow at him, and his grin widened, utterly unrepentant.

Mac, Jack, Bozer and Riley exchanged a glance.

None of them missed the fact that the pilot (who clearly knew her quite well – and was well-liked by her too, or Cage would be doing more than arching a disapproving eyebrow at him) used her new name, her new identity.

Cage herself clearly noticed their exchange, but simply turned and led them towards the farmhouse in the distance.

As they started walking, Jack suddenly stopped, doing a literal, hilarious double-take, pointing at Mac.

'Wait a moment…that guy back there, his name was Angus too, wasn't it?'

Bozer and Riley looked over at Mac too, near-identical mischievous smirks on their faces. Mac himself rolled his eyes and huffed out a long-suffering sigh, while Cage turned back to look at them, one of her enigmatic little smiles on her face and a glint of mischief in her eyes.

'It's a very common name here…'

Jack clapped his partner on the shoulder, mock-sniffling.

'You're finally where you belong, brother!'

Mac sighed and rolled his eyes again, while Bozer and Riley's smirks and Cage's smile widened. She slowed her pace, walking with them instead of in front of them, as Mac spoke.

'That _is_ one of the reasons I used in an attempt to persuade my dad to move to Australia when I was seven…'

As they neared the farmhouse, Mac finished his story with a sheepish little smirk on his face. Jack chortled, thumping Mac on the back, while Bozer had a fit of giggles, Riley shook her head but laughed nonetheless, and Cage had an amused little grin on her face.

And for a moment, it was as if nothing had changed.

* * *

 **SECRET HEADQUARTERS OF AUSTRALIA'S PHOENIX FOUNDATION EQUIVALENT**

 **(ACTUALLY, WHAT IS IT CALLED?)**

 **(THE BUNYIP FOUNDATION?)**

 **SOMEWHERE WEST OF MELBOURNE**

* * *

Cage unlocked the farmhouse door, then led them into what appeared to be just a normal farmhouse.

(It really did look like a farm outside, too. There were whole paddocks of sheep that they'd walked past.)

There was even a woman in a chequered shirt and practical jeans in the kitchen, reading a newspaper and drinking coffee. She put down her mug and arched an eyebrow at Cage as the blonde woman led them all into the kitchen.

(Mac waved awkwardly. Jack waved exuberantly. Riley really wanted to face-palm.)

(She swore that sometimes, it was like having an embarrassing dad and a socially-hopeless sibling.)

Cage just gestured to the four of them.

'Our American guests, Shaz.'

The woman nodded and returned to her newspaper, as if it was normal for someone to bring four random Americans into her kitchen in the middle of her Saturday morning.

Cage just led them further into the kitchen and opened the pantry.

It was much bigger inside than one might expect for a farmhouse kitchen, about the size of a walk-in closet. They all fit comfortably inside, and Cage closed the door, reached out and moved around several tins (tomatoes, beans, pineapple and beetroot) in what appeared to be a deliberate pattern.

A hidden panel in a box of oats opened, revealing a retina scanner, and Cage leaned forward, and let it scan her eye.

It beeped in a way that sounded approving, and then a box of teabags opened, revealing an intercom, which Cage spoke into.

'Samantha Cage, with our American visitors.'

There was another approving-whirring noise, and then, the entire pantry began to sink downwards.

It was a cleverly-concealed elevator.

Bozer's eyes widened.

'Secret elevator! _Awesome_! Seriously, guys, we gotta get Matty to get us one of these!'

Cage smiled.

* * *

In a war room that was very much like theirs, albeit underground and with a black leather couch instead of their brown one, Cage stood at the front, before a big screen, while Mac, Jack, Bozer and Riley sat on the couch. She reached out and tapped the screen once to bring up eight photos.

Two they all recognized as a younger Cage, when she'd been Tasha Sommers, and David Parkes.

The other six, Riley recognized as having been Cage's teammates in Operation Shearwater.

The blonde woman pointed to the two photos below hers and Parkes' on the left side of the screen.

'Lachlan Mitchell and Eleanor Tran, the other Australians on the team.' Both were fairly young; Mitchell only looking a handful of years older than Cage (Sommers?) in the eight-year-old photo, Tran surely no older than thirty-five. She pointed to the photos on the right. 'And the CIA's Timothy Flint, our team leader…' He was a serious-looking man of about fifty-five with greying hair in a military cut. '…Talia Markov…' A beautiful brunette in her early forties. '…Nina Hernandez…' A Hispanic woman with a pixie cut. '…and Kevin Osaka.' A very buff Asian guy of indeterminate age. 'Shearwater was headquartered at another secure site, about a hundred kilometres from here. We were eight months into the op and had accumulated almost all the evidence we needed to bring down Keys, Haworth and Donner's operation…'

* * *

 **EIGHT YEARS AGO**

 **OPERATION SHEARWATER HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA**

* * *

Tasha Sommers, newly-minted SASR 4 Squadron interrogation expert and the most junior member of the CIA-SASR team working the op, looked up from her profiles of the smuggling ring's ringleaders (at least, who they thought the ringleaders might be) as her team leader walked into the room, looking even more serious than usual.

He had his phone in his right hand, and spoke without preamble, as was his way.

'Osaka's had a car accident. A fatal car accident.'

All six team members looked around at each other, their expressions turning very grim. Three weeks ago, Hernandez had been killed on a stake-out gone wrong, in a firefight.

She'd been their forensic expert, but Tran (who had some forensic training, even if she was primarily an intelligence analyst) had noted that the angle of the fatal bullet didn't seem to match the location of any known hostiles.

Two deaths in a month?

That was no coincidence.

Someone was hunting them.

* * *

'Couldn't sleep, Tash?'

Sommers had heard him coming ten seconds ago, because he'd made his (familiar) footsteps particularly loud, so didn't startle, simply kept leaning against the boundary fence of their remote headquarters (necessary as the smuggling operation Shearwater was targeting was based in rural Australia, a smart move on the part of the smugglers), looking out into the distance.

Lachlan Mitchell, white-hat with a reputation both for his skills and his very stereotypical, yet completely genuine, 'larrikin' personality, who insisted everyone called him Lachie, joined her in leaning against the fence, despite the lack of invitation.

The wind picked up a little, causing Sommers to pull her jacket tighter around her. Lachie, meanwhile, wearing only a T-shirt and his beloved black-and-white Collingwood Magpies Football Club scarf, didn't even shiver. He nudged her with his elbow and held up the scarf's end with a crooked grin.

'I'd offer you this, but I know you've got something unreasonable against the Pies, so…'

She wasn't a Collingwood fan, and by definition, that meant she _did_ have something against the Magpies, but they were both well aware that that wasn't the reason why she'd refuse his scarf, even if she was a little chilled and it'd probably have to snow for Lachie to feel the cold.

(He was from Coldstream, the appropriately-named record-holder for coldest place in the state, and claimed to be adapted to it.)

No, Tasha Sommers was strong, tough and way more than competent.

She knew it, too, was confident in that, but young, female agent that she was, was determined to _prove_ it.

Lachie respected that, and got it.

(Which was at least one of the reasons why she let him get away with calling her Tash in private.)

(Besides, they'd known each other for years. He might be a few years older than her, but they'd gone through training together.)

She trusted him more than anyone else, save her sister, who had no idea what her little sister's job in the Australian military _actually_ entailed.

So, she turned to him and told him what had been gnawing on her ever since that morning, when the news of Osaka's death had broken.

'I think we have a mole.'

* * *

'Boss? Can we talk to you for a sec?'

Lachie and Sommers, seemingly returning from the break room where they'd been grabbing a cup of coffee, stopped Flint as he made his way out of his office and into the hallway.

He nodded, and led them both back into his office. Lachie and Sommers exchanged a glance, and then Sommers, never one to mince words, spoke, voice calm, serious and deadly sure.

'Parkes is a mole.'

She'd hardly finished her sentence when Flint's phone rang. He shook himself out of his shock (he'd suspected that there was a mole somewhere in Shearwater, but had thought it most likely to be someone at HQ, not one of his very own team…they'd worked together for eight months, saved each other's asses more times than he could count), and answered.

Sommers and Lachie had the (unfortunate) privilege of seeing all the colour drain out of their normally-unperturbable boss's face.

He hung up and turned back to them.

'Markov's dead. Explosion at the cannery she was checking out.' They all knew that it was no industrial accident. 'Initial forensics suggests C4.'

Whoever was hunting them wasn't doing subtle anymore.

They wanted them to know they were being taken out.

* * *

'Damn it!'

Tran, Sommers and Lachie all exchanged a glance as they saw their boss lose his cool for the very first time.

It wasn't surprising.

They'd just gotten into sight of a granary ten miles from the nearest human that Parkes had been sent to check out, to follow a lead that he'd _supposedly_ found.

The building was going up in flames.

There were several possible conclusions.

Parkes had gotten away and set the fire as a forensic countermeasure.

The smuggling ring had decided that Parkes was a loose end that needed tying up.

Or Parkes had decided to tie up his own loose end.

Based on what she knew of the man (which was a lot, even if he'd hardly _told_ her any of it – she was just kicking herself that she'd never noticed what he was doing, but consoled herself with her mentor's words - you always missed _something_ ), Sommers would put money on it being the last.

* * *

Hours later, when the firemen had all gone, waiting until the building cooled more to return for clean-up and investigation, under the cover of darkness, Sommers, Flint, Lachie and Tran picked their way through the burnt-out granary.

Sommers' flashlight fell on a grim sight.

A badly-burned skeleton.

'Flint, Tran, Lachie!'

Her three remaining teammates gathered around her, and after a moment of silence, Tran spoke, her voice a touch shaky.

(He was a mole. He was, indirectly, responsible for the deaths of three of their teammates. Friends.)

(But he'd been a friend too.)

'Male. Appears to be the right age and build to be Parkes.'

Sommers stepped forward, closer to the corpse, ignoring Tran's noise of protest. She carefully hooked the butt of her gun under a silvery chain that'd been partly fused to the body, pulling it up and holding it up so that the others could see the ornate cross at the end.

(Sommers knew Parkes wasn't religious. He wore that necklace at all times due to sentimental value, most likely associated with his mother, whom he had lost in early childhood.)

There was another silence. Not even Lachie attempting to crack a joke or lighten the mood.

Flint broke it this time, his voice as serious as ever.

'We have a job to do.' He turned to the three agents, the three youngest and least experienced on his team, whom he had only known for eight months. He knew they were good agents, and they'd be great ones in a few years, with more experience under their belts. They all nodded seriously in acknowledgement and agreement. They were down four. They were being hunted by someone who was _far_ too good. They were outmatched, and time was running out. But they had a job to do – gather all the evidence needed to take down an entire smuggling operation threatening both US and Australian national security. 'Stick to the plan.'

Again, they all nodded seriously.

* * *

At the time, Sommers had had no idea that _stick to the plan_ would be the last words Flint ever said to her.

(Looking back, years later, when it was all over, when the pain was less raw, she'd decide that he'd have liked it that way.)

At the time, she hadn't been able to feel anything.

There was no _time._

Flint's dying act had been to get Tran the financial records that were one of the three gaping holes left in their evidence against the ring.

Now, she just had to follow the money.

As the young Vietnamese-Australian agent got to work, her face pale but focused, Sommers cornered Lachie outside what had once been Flint's office, and asked a question she already knew the answer to.

(She just had to hear it from him.)

'You couldn't find another way into their servers, could you?'

Lachie just shook his head.

'No.'

Tasha nodded in acceptance.

She wasn't sweet or sentimental.

(That was Lachie's job.)

Still, she reached out and hugged him tightly, relished in the feel of his arms holding her back.

It would be the last time.

* * *

'He did it!'

As she spoke, Tran was already downloading the entire contents of the smuggling ring's servers, which Lachie had sent to her using a heavily-encrypted, two-way network that he'd put together just the night before.

Sommers heard her, felt a surge of triumph and pride that he'd succeeded, but remained focused on listening to a local police radio channel, which they'd tapped into.

'…reports of gunshots, repeat, reports of gunshots, at the corner of Adams and Spencer…'

In her pocket, her phone vibrated.

She didn't look at the message. She already knew what it'd be.

* * *

Four minutes later, the police radio crackled to life again.

'…one deceased, male, brunette, blue eyes, mid-late twenties…'

Tran reached out, grasped Sommers' forearm for a moment, eyes soft and gentle and sympathetic and sorry.

'Can you…can you do it?'

She gestured with her free hand to the very short denim shorts and halter top hanging on a spare chair (there were a lot of those now).

There was still one last hole to fill.

Sommers just nodded.

'We have a job to do.'

* * *

Seduce a target, then hack their brain to get every last piece of intel out of it was one of the oldest tricks in the spy book.

It was also, quite possibly, Sommers' best trick.

She was done very quickly, and after gagging the ring's 'on-the-ground' leader, a former local petty criminal, she was copying over the audio and video file from her phone to a USB, so that she had a second copy, just in case.

That was when she got the text from Tran.

 _He's found HQ. Set off the security to slow him. Rendezvous 6._

Her expression returned to that grim line it'd been in nearly-permanently for days, it seemed.

Then, purposefully, she grabbed her target's keys, ignoring his muffled and incoherent sounds of protest, and strode towards his car.

* * *

Sommers pulled up at the rendezvous point, tires screeching, at the same time as Tran.

The other woman staggered out of her vehicle, clutching her side, which was seeping blood. She held out her other hand, which was also bloodied and clutching a hard drive, to Sommers.

(The hard drive held the only copy of all of their evidence on the ring. They couldn't risk sending it over a network; they didn't know how compromised the op was. The plan called for them to get it to Lucius Marlowe, a CIA agent that Flint trusted absolutely, who was currently at Puckapunyal Military Base, 120 kilometres away, due to an unrelated, classified matter.)

Sommers took it, tucked it into a pouch held close to her body, then moved to help Tran, who was very pale and weak from blood loss, still clutching her side, to the car she'd 'borrowed' from her target. They had to get moving; the assassin who was hell-bent on taking out every member of their team would be here any minute. The other woman shook her head, jerking her head towards the car she'd taken from their HQ.

'I've left 2.5 litres in there.' Sommers knew what that meant. With effort, Tran pulled her gun out of the holster at her side. 'If he gets here fast enough, I can buy you some time, but that's all.' Sommers swallowed, hesitating for a moment. She might not be sentimental or sweet or even soft, but she _cared._ She really, really did, and just leaving her teammate, her _friend_ (Ellie, the woman she'd sometimes shared a bottle of wine with when they were off-duty, Ellie, who was unfailingly kind and selfless and a die-hard believer in the goodness of people and quite possibly the most intellectually-brilliant woman Tasha had ever met) here to die alone…but Tran just gave a weak nod of her head towards Sommers' stolen car. 'Go! Now!'

She did.

Without looking back.

* * *

She drove as fast as she could.

Her mind whirred even faster.

The assassin had to know that there was only one sensible route to Puckapunyal from Rendezvous Point 6.

Thankfully, she knew the route well.

That meant she knew that the best place to take her out with, most certainly, a headshot from a medium distance (efficient, unlikely to miss, and clean, preventing any chance of her taking a risk and sending out the evidence in a data dump using the 'panic button' on the specially-built hard drive in the middle of a fight), was coming up in just two clicks.

Which meant she needed to come up with a plan if she was going to get the drive to Marlowe.

* * *

Half a click from the spot, Sommers jammed the accelerator down with a couple of spent magazines, then tied the steering wheel in place with her belt.

Then, counting in her head, she scooted over the centre console and to the passenger-side door, jumping out only seconds before she reached that spot.

She landed hard and painfully on the floor of the forest beside the road, rolling to disperse her momentum and get further into cover.

Behind her, her car _exploded_ into a fireball.

She felt the searing heat of the explosion wash over her, as well as shrapnel (in very small pieces) fly everywhere.

A rocket launcher, her brain registered dimly. A _rocket launcher._

She automatically reassessed her mental profile of the assassin.

Clearly, he was some kind of narcissist with a love for drama.

She rolled further into the bush, before, a little shakily but with great determination, getting to her feet.

It'd play to her advantage.

After all, if she'd been in that car, she'd have been vaporized, or at the very least, blown to smithereens.

If the assassin bothered to verify his kill (she didn't have enough information to decide whether he would or not), it'd take him a very long time to determine (if he even could, if he'd been expecting vaporization) that she wasn't dead.

She had more time.

* * *

Tasha Sommers was bloodied and bruised and looked an absolute fright when she reached Puckapunyal. Her hair was singed and she smelled a bit like smoke and her skin was seared pink from the heat of the explosion.

She was also exhausted and dehydrated.

But she got the drive to Marlowe.

The first arrests were made within hours. Prosecutors began working on cases within days.

She spent days in debrief. One of her trainers (the one who'd told her, you always miss something) was one of the debriefers, and he made sure to emphasize how well she'd done.

Marlowe himself (he was a hard man to impress, one who rarely gave out praise, she'd determined within minutes of meeting him) had said she was a good agent.

 _Everyone_ thought so.

Tasha felt a little like she was underwater, listening to them. Like she had felt when she was four years old, in her neighbour's pool, in that sudden calm that'd settled over her after all that panic, hearing her mother's voice…

She had expected herself to reach Puckapunyal alive.

(She was Tasha Sommers. She was strong and very, very good at her job. She _would_ finish it, no matter what.)

She'd been far less certain on reaching Puckapunyal in a state that meant she would be alive for much _longer._

(All she could think of then was a dying Ellie, clutching her side, telling her to go.)

* * *

Finally, after debrief was done to both the SASR and the CIA's satisfaction, Tasha sank down on her single bed in the tiny room she'd been provided (its only saving grace was that it was private). She pulled the standard Army-issue pillow to her body, and at long last, took out her phone and opened that very last text from Lachie.

It said exactly what she'd known it'd say, but reading the words was something else.

It was like a dam broke, and she curled into herself, sobbing, deep, heart-wrenching, painful sobs, finally, finally, finally letting herself feel _everything._

She remembered Lachie, with his crooked grin and perpetually messy hair, remembered how Tran – Ellie – looked at her with so much sympathy after his death, remembered how Hernandez would take it upon herself to make them chocolate-chip cookies from time to time, how Flint had taken her aside to offer some words of comfort and advice when her very first solo task had gone a touch sideways, how Osaka was the best cook of them all and the delicious meals he'd prepare whenever he had the chance, how Markov kept her toenails painted at all times and was always willing to share her nail polish, because even if they were women in a man's world, why couldn't they be girly?

She cried and cried until she couldn't anymore.

And then, she sat up slowly and took deep, shaky breaths until they weren't shaky anymore.

After that, she got up and went to the bathroom and took a very long shower, washing her face carefully, then applying a cold compress until the puffiness of her eyes went away.

She watched the water run down the drain in the sink when she washed out the towel she was using for a compress, and let herself imagine it was her pain and her grief and her guilt and her anger.

* * *

Marlowe himself handed her a copy (completely un-redacted) of the final report for Operation Shearwater.

The causalities page listed all eight agents, including Tasha Sommers.

That came as no surprise to her.

It was better for everyone to believe that Tasha Sommers was dead.

(Her sister included, as much as it would hurt. As much as she'd miss her.)

It was better if the mysterious assassin believed that he'd succeeded in his mission.

(The assassin concerned the CIA the most of everything that'd gone so wrong in this op, she knew.)

(He'd taken out seven highly-trained operatives, shamefully easily. Almost taken out the eighth.)

(And he hadn't left a single trace. They'd searched, long and hard. And come up with _nothing_.)

Marlowe then handed her a second file.

A new identity.

Samantha Cage. Formerly of Australia's SASR 4 Squadron, then recruited to the CIA.

She raised her head when she read that, looked up at Marlowe, looking him in the eye.

He was serious.

He was the one who broke the silence and spoke, his voice not gentle, but not unkind or unsympathetic either.

'D.C. is a long way from country Victoria.'

She looked down at the file again, remembered the water going down the drain.

(As much as she tried to visualize it, as meaningful as the symbolism was, that water was _not_ her pain and grief and guilt and anger. Those would not be so easily washed away.)

She nodded, looked up into Marlowe's eyes again.

'I accept.'

He inclined his head, having seemingly foreseen her answer.

'Welcome to the CIA, Cage.'

* * *

She hadn't looked back.

Had buried it away, not to be unearthed until the day Murdoc had whispered those words in her ear, shot her for the first time.

Despite her best efforts, after that, she'd never been able to _quite_ bury it that deeply again.

And then, she'd looked into his eyes that fateful Christmas…and she'd _known._

In the early days of her recovery, once her medication decreased enough to clear her mind, she'd had a lot of time to think, even with Mac, Jack, Bozer, Riley and Matty's frequent visits.

She'd come to two conclusions.

Firstly, she couldn't keep running. She couldn't keep going on knowing that her beloved sister thought she was dead, or knowing that she'd never seen Lachie's grave or Ellie's grave, never paid her respects or told them she was sorry and she missed them or replied to Lachie's last text.

(It took having a family again to make her realize that. Sometimes, she really did wonder just what she'd given up in the service of two countries.)

And secondly, one day, the truth would out. Murdoc would make sure of it.

And she didn't know if she could bear the fall-out from her newfound family.

(They could say all they wanted about how she could hack minds; she wasn't always right, and honestly, she really wasn't sure they'd ever really trust her again, once they knew.)

So she'd gotten to work talking her doctors into letting her go back to Australia.

 _Home,_ she'd called it then, and realized that maybe, even after all this time, it still was.

* * *

 **PRESENT DAY**

 **NOT-A-FARMHOUSE SECRET HQ**

 **(WHAT ELSE ARE WE SUPPOSED TO CALL IT?)**

 **SOMEWHERE IN VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA**

* * *

Cage and Riley were in front of a giant screen, the blonde standing and staring at it with an evaluative gaze, the hacker seated and typing rapidly.

Cage's people had been keeping an eye on Donner and Keys from the moment they'd entered Australia. Their techs had turned over everything to Riley when she'd arrived (it was a condition of their joint op, and Cage promised they'd get over it, though she did suggest – a little tongue-in-cheek – that they buy them a round of beers when it was all over), and it appeared that the duo planned to go to ground.

Several potential sites for their hideout had been tabled.

One of them was in the middle of the Western Australian outback. At that moment, Bozer was reading a survival guide to the region written by a local Indigenous ranger and oohing and aahing at the spectacular landscape, while Jack was planning out the best possible routes for an assault on the property and complaining about having to fly another five hours there, as Mac memorized a map of the local area (which covered 500 square kilometres) and toyed with a paperclip.

Their respective focusses were all broken by Cage pointing to the latest location that'd appeared on the screen, speaking with great certainty and conviction.

'There. That's where they'll be.'

* * *

 **SOMEWHERE IN THE AUSTRALIAN BUSH**

 **NEAR-ISH BALLARAT, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA**

* * *

The small wooden cabin, so similar to the cabin that Mac and Nikki had liked to spend romantic weekends away in (he supposed there were only a finite number of variations possible for a 'small, quiet, isolated wooden cabin suitable for romantic getaways') appeared deserted when they burst in, Jack and Cage at the front, guns at the ready, followed by Riley and Bozer (she with her own gun, Bozer with a very hefty tree branch), then Mac (who'd somehow whipped up a shock-stick from what looked like bits of a toaster he'd taken from HQ – Cage just knew she was going to have to explain Mac and his ways to Shaz when they got back), but it showed signs of recent habitation.

There was a pot in the fireplace, with food scraps in it that had yet to go off. There were tins that'd previously held soup in the trash can, as well as wrappers from some Hershey's kisses (unusual in Australia, hence almost-certainly brought over from the States by Donner and Keys). Off to one side, there was a sturdy wooden chair, with a roll of duct-tape and, for some reason, a red silk tie on a small table beside it.

They only just had time to come to that conclusion when suddenly, gunfire rang out, bullets coming through the windows, and reflexively, they all sought out the best cover, running into the bedroom at the back of the house, which was free of windows.

The door swung shut behind them with a rather ominous thump, as the gunfire suddenly stopped. After a moment of them all catching their breath, Jack motioned to Bozer, who was nearest him, and the two of them got up to check the door, Jack holding his weapon at the ready as Bozer tried to open it, tugging hard.

'It's locked, guys!'

Mac, Riley and Cage all exchanged a glance, and then, Mac cocked his head to the side.

'Brother, what-'

He held up his hand.

'Quiet.'

Mac listened carefully, then picked his way carefully over to the bed, taking very light footsteps, and pulled the pillows off it, revealing a bomb underneath, which he immediately began to examine.

Jack cursed. Loudly.

Bozer jerked his thumb at the older man.

'What he said.'

Riley shot him a _look_ , and Bozer shrugged, a _what?_ expression on his face, while Cage glanced at Mac, who was focused on disarming the bomb. He spoke without looking away from the explosive.

'See if you can get that door open.'

The ticking bomb kept counting down.

 _01:18._

 _01:17._

 _01:16_

* * *

 _0:34._

 _0:33._

* * *

The terrifying red numbers blinked a few times, before going out with a low whirr, and Mac breathed a sigh of relief, as Bozer, Riley, Jack and Cage, still struggling with the door, sank down to the floor, leaning against the wall, Bozer and Riley on the left, Jack and Cage on the right.

'…Semi-automatics hidden in the trees, rigged to fire five minutes after the front door opens…'

Mac held up a pair of tiny sensors and a tangle of wires in his right hand, as they finished up their search of the cabin.

Jack looked up from where he was finishing up gathering samples for forensic analysis under Bozer's supervision, as Riley perched on the kitchen counter, typing rapidly. Cage walked out of the bedroom, which she'd been searching, just as Mac finished explaining the really-rather-simple device.

'We just about ready to bounce, then?' Mac nodded, and Jack let out a whoop, then scratched the side of his neck. 'Good, 'cause the local wildlife seem keen on eating me for breakfast, lunch and dinner!'

Mac gave a little smirk.

'Better you than me.' Jack glared at him, then slapped his neck as he felt the tickle of another mosquito, squashing the insect into his own flesh, which made Riley wrinkle her nose and Bozer let out a long _eww._ Still, Mac reached into his messenger bag and pulled out a blue bottle labelled Aeroguard Insect Repellant. Jack shot him a _look,_ and Mac just shrugged. 'Boy Scout, remember?'

 _Besides, there are no fewer than twenty-three off-label uses for insect repellent. It's handy to have around._

Meanwhile, Cage just stared at the sturdy wooden chair and the table next to it, bearing the roll of duct-tape and the red tie.

* * *

 **NOT-A-FARMHOUSE SECRET HQ**

 **SOMEWHERE IN VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA**

* * *

As Cage walked out of the war room that they'd apparently taken over to talk to her boss, Jack leaned over, closer to Mac.

'Is it just me, brother, or has she been particularly… _cagey_ ever since the cabin?'

Mac rolled his eyes.

'Jack, that is a _terrible_ pun.' His face grew serious, and he nodded. 'But yeah.'

She'd been clipped, serious and utterly professional the whole drive back.

That clipped, rather enigmatic bearing reminded Mac a little bit of their very first mission together in Turkey.

Which meant that she was taking this really, really personally (which was completely unsurprisingly).

He also got the feeling that she was bothered. Unsettled. Her equilibrium (which had seemed to be, frankly, unperturbable, except for when she was at risk of drowning) was disturbed.

They'd seen, perhaps, hints of that when she'd been shot by Murdoc.

(After all, Cage had suddenly seemingly about-faced and practically disappeared to Australia, going home for the first time in years.)

(Which begged the question…at the time, had she known that Murdoc had killed her team?)

* * *

'…these are stills from the video Cage took during her interrogation of O'Donnelly.'

He was the man that she'd interrogated to fill the last gap in their brief of evidence to take down Keys, Donner and Haworth's operation.

Riley brought the stills up and let them speak for themselves.

O'Donnelly was duct-taped to a solid wooden chair, wearing a bright-red silk tie. A later image had the tie stuffed into his mouth and tied around his head as a gag.

He was also clearly sitting in a wooden cabin with a fireplace, practically identical to the cabin they'd been in just hours ago.

Jack let out a low whistle.

'No wonder she's so cagey…she saw a ghost.'

Meanwhile, Mac's brain was whirring and rapidly coming to a conclusion he _really_ did not like.

'How did Keys and Donner know we were heading there, of all the potential sites?' He gestured at the photos on the screen. 'And how would they know about all these details? Parkes was dead by then, and Cage took that footage herself and it was never transmitted it over a network until it was verified that Parkes was the only breach. It was tightly classified and compartmentalized.' Only Marlowe had _seen_ the tape, until the four of them, Matty and Oversight had gotten their hands on it a couple of days ago, and even then, they hadn't actually _watched_ it, having higher priorities at the time, leaving an algorithm of Riley's to screen it instead. Mac swallowed and turned around to face Jack, Bozer and Riley. 'If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'

There were only five people who could possibly have _both_ pieces of information that'd be needed to set that trap.

(While Marlowe, Oversight, Jill and Matty had or could have watched the footage, none of them were aware of the fact that they'd gone to the cabin.)

Mac himself, Jack, Bozer, Riley and Cage.

Obviously, he wasn't a mole. Jack, Bozer or Riley being a mole was also impossible.

Which left Cage.

He didn't like it, but it was the only possibility.

He watched as it sank in to his teammates.

Jack was the first one to find his voice.

'No, son, there's no way she could…all seven of 'em _died_!'

'Bro, I know you're, like, smarter than Sherlock Holmes, but…don't you think…I mean…you gotta be wrong sometimes, right?'

Riley was lost in thought, considering, and spoke after a moment.

'Maybe we missed something.'

Mac swallowed and nodded. He really, really hoped so.

That little bit of doubt in his head reared its ugly head again, growing ever larger.

At that moment, Cage walked back into the war room.

She looked at all four of them for just a couple of seconds (Bozer, Jack and Mac looking like they'd just been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, Riley managing to conceal her guilt better), and then spoke with vehement conviction.

'I am not _the_ mole.'

She sounded completely, utterly genuine.

The problem, Mac thought, was that they all knew Cage was a master liar.

If she were lying, they'd never be able to tell.

She looked at them all again for a beat, before her voice grew quieter, a little weaker. Jagged around the edges, perhaps, instead of her usual smooth calm.

'Lachie, Ellie, Markov, Hernandez, Osaka, Flint…they were like _family._ ' Her voice actually wavered a little on the last word, and she looked down, then back up at them. 'I would _never_ get them killed.'

Mac looked her in the eye.

She could see it on his face.

He wanted to believe her.

Very, very badly.

He just wasn't sure if he could. If he should.

* * *

'…it's highly sophisticated, I've never seen anything like this…'

Riley, looking a little frustrated and even jealous, gestured to the screen, which had lines of code on it that none of Mac, Jack, Bozer and Cage could make any sense of.

It was, apparently, an expertly, incredibly well camouflaged program buried in the SASR's network that relayed extremely specific intel to an as-yet-unidentified computer.

It relayed only information containing specific keywords related to Operation Shearwater.

The specificity of it, how little intel it stole, was apparently one of the reasons why it'd escaped detection for over eight years.

* * *

'…They never used DNA to verify that the dead guy was Parkes!' Bozer gestured at his computer screen. 'Seriously, people, didn't you watch enough _CSI?_ Always, always check the DNA!'

The identification of Parkes' corpse by Cage and her teammates had been verified using dental records (which Bozer knew could be faked with enough skill and effort and access to a corrupt dentist – he'd done a _lot_ of research for one of his movie scripts), but not a DNA test.

Which meant that, maybe, just maybe, it _wasn't_ impossible that Parkes was the one and only mole after all.

It _wasn't_ impossible that he was still out there, reading the info that that program Riley had found sent out and setting them up.

Which meant…

He looked over at Cage.

They'd all been, unsurprisingly, watching her closely since Mac had channelled Sherlock Holmes.

His BFF especially.

(Bozer didn't blame him. If he were his BFF – whose ex-girlfriend had faked her death, then pretended to be evil, before revealing that she was _really_ deep-cover CIA, with a little back-and-forth in the middle, whose boss of years had been revealed to be a bad guy, whose big-boss had turned out to be the father who'd abandoned him and not only wasn't who he thought he was, but had also been puppet-mastering his life for years, and whose new teammate, friend and member of the family and possibly someday-love-interest had lied to him about her identity – he'd have trust issues too.)

Still, Mac had relaxed a little, like they all had, when Riley had uncovered that sneaky little program, and Bozer could practically see his BFF exhaling in relief as he also glanced over at Cage.

(Seriously, sometimes he really wondered how he'd bought that Mac really just worked at a think-tank for all those years.)

(His boy had no guile, was pretty darn transparent and was an awful liar.)

* * *

The doubt, the suspicion, that she could read clear on their faces, in their eyes, in their stances, faded notably with Bozer and Riley's findings.

Cage felt lighter for it.

They didn't have that unwavering faith and loyalty for her that they had for each other.

She hadn't quite had it yet when she'd left (even Matty hadn't _completely_ then, though she did now), but she'd been well on her way to earning it.

Now, Cage thought, it was like the beginning again. When she'd first met them all.

Then, they were willing to trust that she was on their side, that she'd have their backs in the field, based on Matty's word and her own actions.

But then, they'd also had their doubts, had some wariness.

(Unsurprisingly.)

(Especially – perhaps unexpectedly to some, but not to her – Bozer, and Mac, even if he hid it far better.)

(In fact, might have hidden it so well he didn't _consciously_ notice.)

(She was quite sure that there was always so much going on in Mac's brain that even he couldn't keep track of it all.)

It gave her hope.

That one day, things could be more-or-less the same as they'd been _before._

* * *

'Got them!'

Riley, who'd spent hours and hours trying to track down Donner and Keys, gave a cry of triumph and hit the enter key on her laptop, bringing up an image of a burned-out structure in the middle of nowhere on the big screen.

Cage sucked in a breath, and the other four all turned to face her, Jack speaking.

'That the granary?'

She nodded.

There was silence for a moment, as the paperclip in Mac's hands took the shape of a head of wheat, before Bozer spoke, breaking the tension.

'Why do all the baddies always have such a sense of poetry and drama?'

That drew snorts from everyone, even a tiny one from Cage, no more than a particularly hard exhale.

Bozer counted that as a win.

* * *

 **BURNED-OUT GRANARY**

 **SOMEWHERE IN VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA**

* * *

'This, brother, is why you don't bring a knife to a gunfight!' Pinned by near-constant gunfire, Mac, Jack and Cage, the latter two with their weapons at the ready, huddled behind some old metal drums. 'Especially when the other guys have semi-automatics!'

Mac was scanning the still-miraculously-mostly-intact wall of the granary behind them, taking in the blackened and charred items lining the wall.

His _I-have-an-idea_ face appeared and he turned to Jack with a little smirk on his face, holding up his Swiss Army knife.

'I can do a lot more with this than a gun.' He gestured to a spot thirty feet away, where there was a bench with cans of _something_ on it behind another cluster of charred metal drums. 'Cover me!'

Mac darted away as Jack turned and fired a few shots over the top of their cover, grumbling all the while about being saddled with a partner with no sense of self-preservation whatsoever.

Cage tuned it out.

(She'd learned it was best to just leave Mac and Jack to bicker. It was their admittedly slightly weird way of reminding one another in the field that the other one was there, that they weren't alone, and so, things were going to be okay, no matter what.)

Something on the opposite side of the warehouse, in the far corner, near where they'd come in but gotten pinned halfway through by Donner and Keys, caught her eye instead.

It was just a glimpse. A flash.

Of a balding head and a set of shoulders.

The head had far less hair and the shoulders were a little wider than she remembered.

But it was nonetheless familiar.

It should have been impossible.

But with the doubt Bozer had cast, with the fact that she knew she was _not_ hallucinating…

Well, when you eliminated the impossible, whatever remained, however improbable, had to be the truth.

On autopilot, operating on instinct and training and years of experience, Cage started making her way over to that corner, ignoring Jack's groans.

'Oh, God damn it, two of 'em? Really? Cage, come on, Mac I expect it from, but I thought you were better than that!' There was the clang of a bullet striking metal. 'Oh, can it, will you! Mac, brother, hurry up!'

* * *

She followed that definitely-not-a-ghost out of the granary, tracking the footprints through the unmown grass, and into the bush.

* * *

'Hello, Tasha.'

She whirled twenty degrees to the right, her gun fixating onto Parkes' forehead, right between his eyes. His own weapon was trained between her eyes too, and he had a smirk on his face.

She looked back at him, her hands steady, gaze cool and calm.

'Parkes.'

His smirk widened, as the two of them circled one another around the clearing.

'It's been a long time since someone's called you that, eh? Do you prefer Samantha now?'

She let some of that burning _anger_ she felt show in her eyes as she locked gazes with him.

' _Why_?'

They had been a team. Friends. Maybe even family.

And then he'd betrayed them.

Killed them.

Parkes' voice turned bitter.

'You remember that recruitment pitch. Save lives, serve your country, make the world a better place.' His mouth twisted into a bitter parody of a smile. 'After twenty-three years…you start seeing the patterns, the cycle. How they claim you're helping, but all you do is trigger something even worse. How the collateral damage starts adding up…' He snorted, just as jaded as his smile. 'You're not doing any good. And then, when someone offers you ten times your pension…' He shrugged. 'What're you gonna say?'

Her fingers tightened on the trigger.

How could he be so _blasé?_ His disillusionment was at least reasonable enough to be understandable (even if she felt wholeheartedly that he was wrong), but those were the lives of their team he'd exchanged for cash.

Parkes laughed.

'Come on, Tasha. Pull the trigger. I know you've got it in you. For Hernandez. Osaka. Markov. Flint. Ellie. Lachie…'

He was taunting her.

She knew it, recognized what he was doing.

(She hadn't been wrong, after all, in the end, all those years ago, when she'd concluded he'd most likely tie up his own loose end.)

If she killed Parkes now, maybe there'd always, always be that doubt in Mac's mind, in everyone else's mind, that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't the mole, or wasn't the only mole.

Only circumstantial evidence implicated Parkes in the latest leaks, and none of it actually cleared her.

She shouldn't kill him.

He should be captured and interrogated by her boss, both former and current.

Which would clear her name, once and for all.

But even if Murdoc had pulled the trigger, even if it'd been Haworth and Keys and Donner who'd ordered it…in the end, it could have been any assassin, or any bad guy.

It'd been _Parkes_ who'd ultimately killed them.

And she was the only one left to avenge them.

She'd spent eight years running.

The past had still caught up with her.

It was time to end it.

Once and for all.

* * *

A gunshot echoed through the trees, followed by another.

Mac and Jack glanced at one another and picked up their pace, skidding to a halt in a clearing.

There was a bullet lodged in a nearby tree.

And Cage was standing over Parkes, who was clutching his right shoulder, blood seeping through his fingers, her gun fixed on his forehead.

'You were right. I could kill you, and I'd sleep fine tonight.' She paused. 'But it's been eight years. This has to _end._ '

She brought the butt of her gun down on the back of Parkes' head, knocking him out, then turned on her heel, sheathing her weapon, not wanting to have to look at him any longer.

Mac offered her a little smile, sympathetic and approving, before getting to work binding Parkes' shoulder and securing his wrists. Jack gave her a smile too, clasping her shoulder for a beat.

'You did good, Cage.'

She managed to smile too.

* * *

On the way back, they stopped at a gas station so Mac could buy some supplies to clean off the stinky black gunk that coated Donner and Keys (it was a lot like the disgusting residue you got when you didn't clean your oven frequently enough), and some snacks for him to eat (as he hadn't eaten properly in days and was starving).

Cage, who was driving, turned a little in her seat to face Bozer (in the front passenger seat) and Riley and Jack (sitting in the back with Mac and the prisoners), a knowing little smile on her face.

'Who is she?' Jack and Bozer looked confused. Riley gave a knowing little smile right back, and Cage elaborated. 'The woman Mac has feelings for, which he hasn't acted on yet, despite being in deeper than he thinks for her?'

'Oh _, her_ , why didn't you say?' Riley looked like she really wanted to face-palm at Jack's words. The older man continued, smirking and crossing his arms. 'And why don't you tell us, Ms Mind-Reader?'

She leaned back a little, studying the three of them as she ran through what she'd already determined.

'She works for the Phoenix, but started after I returned home. She's support staff, not field…and not admin, HR or wardrobe…' She studied Jack for a beat. 'Either an analyst or medical…no, definitely medical.'

Jack let out a low whistle, as Bozer clapped, and then, the older man spoke.

'You haven't lost your touch, Cage.' A soft, fond smile grew on Jack's face, which made Cage give a little smile too. Mac's relationship with his biological father was even rockier than it'd been when she'd left now, but it was nice to see that his relationship with Jack was just as strong and loving as ever. 'And her name's Beth. She's a sweetheart, most of the time. Sometimes a spitfire.'

Bozer chipped in.

'And the only doctor my bro will listen to.' He affected a disbelieving tone. 'Sometimes, he's actually almost a _good_ patient for her!'

Cage's smile widened a little more, as she arched an eyebrow, even though she knew what Bozer said was true.

Sure, Mac had an obvious weakness for beautiful and intelligent women, but making him an almost-good patient was something she'd never expected anyone to actually be able to do.

(He was _that_ bad.)

(The time he'd been poisoned with VX gas, she'd gotten a phone call not ten minutes after she'd left the hospital, reporting that he'd been caught just inside the front entrance, trying to escape.)

* * *

 **CAGE'S APARTMENT**

 **OUTSKIRTS OF NORTH-WESTERN MELBOURNE**

 **VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA**

* * *

Her apartment was all sleek, clean, modern lines, with a touch of industrial, reminiscent of her place in LA.

There were few decorations or knick-knacks or clutter, save for a cluster of framed photos on a sideboard.

One of a teen Cage and her sister, a girl who looked a few years older and an awful lot like Cage, just with light brown hair and a slightly curvier figure.

One of Cage with her sister and a man they assumed was her husband, as well as a boy and a girl of about six and four respectively. Cage's niece and nephew, surely.

And there was another photo of Cage, looking eight or nine years younger, leaning her head against the chest of a sandy-haired young man with vivid blue eyes and a crooked grin. He had his arms wrapped around her waist, his head tucked over her shoulder, and both of them were grinning at the camera, looking young and happy and carefree and very much in love.

They recognized him.

Her former teammate, Lachie. Her _deceased_ former teammate.

Mac, Jack, Bozer and Riley all turned to her, silent for a moment, trying to come up with a respectful way to ask.

In the end, they didn't have to, because she just nodded, a sad, wistful smile on her face, and took the photo from Mac, looking down at it for a beat, before setting it down carefully back into its place.

Eventually, Jack broke the silence.

'No wonder you don't date people you meet at work.'

Cage shook her head, brushing a speck of imaginary dust off the glass.

'I've had that rule ever since I was fifteen and stacking shelves at my local supermarket.' She paused, still looking at the photo. 'I broke it for him.'

* * *

'I'm sorry.'

Cage closed the fridge door (there wasn't enough to feed five in there that was suitable for eating; she hadn't been home for over a week), and looked up at Mac, who was standing next to the fridge, fiddling a little awkwardly with his hands.

(They were alone in the kitchen; Bozer, Jack and Riley were sitting on the couch on the other side of the great room, watching an early pre-season AFL game on TV, loudly bickering about the rules, which none of them actually understood.)

She shook her head, understanding on her face.

'It's alright, Mac. In your position, I'd have done the same.'

Even she agreed it hadn't looked all that good for her after that trap at the cabin.

He shook his head vehemently. Guiltily. Automatically, he pulled a paperclip out of his pocket, beginning to unwind it.

'No, you…you were family.' Cage had earned it. She shouldn't have been doubted the way he had, not without concrete evidence, not when there was evidence to the contrary, even if it wasn't quite concrete. 'You shouldn't treat family like that.'

They were silent and still for a beat, before she nodded and shot him a teasing little smile.

'There's one way you can make it up to me. Make sure Mom lets the family come visit Cousin Cage in Australia once in a while.'

Mac chuckled and nodded, the paperclip in his hands now in the shape of a boomerang, before he gave an awkward half-shrug of his left shoulder, growing more serious.

'Guess you aren't really the girl next door anymore…'

Cage nodded, something wry and teasing but also a touch regretful, maybe even sad, appearing on her face.

'I'm just a little too far away now…'

They stood there in comfortable silence for a while, that last little bit of tension between them dissolving, and then Mac held his arms up for a hug.

'We'll visit, I promise.'

Cage smiled and hugged him back, just as tightly.

* * *

 **CAGE'S FAVOURITE PUB**

 **OUTSKIRTS OF NORTH-WESTERN MELBOURNE**

* * *

Jack enthusiastically raised his forkful of chicken parma (a chicken schnitzel covered in tomato sauce, ham and melted cheese and served with chips and salad) to his mouth, then talked with his mouth full (earning a disgusted look from Riley, which quickly turned into a shared look of commiseration and exasperation with Cage).

'This is amazing! It's a pizza and a schnitzel in one!'

Bozer, who was digging into a beef burger that had beetroot on it for some reason, as well as a fried egg (he wasn't complaining, it was delicious – he was totally inspired!), looked sceptically at him, while Mac raised an eyebrow at his partner dubiously, washing down his mouthful of fish and chips with a sip of beer.

'I'm not sure that consolidating them into one easy-to-manage meal is a good idea…'

* * *

AN: Woo…that was a crazy ride to write! I got stuck partway through, when I started writing the 'flashback' section. I hope you guys liked how I dealt with this storyline, and my characterization of Cage and the backstory I've given her – I've always found writing her difficult, but I really, really wanted to do this. If you're a regular reader of my work, you'll know that I am really not Cage's biggest fan, but I really didn't like how her character was written out of the show, especially with the hints they dropped about her past and what they were building between her and Mac (which I have never really liked, but that's a whole other story) – she pretty much disappeared completely! I might not have liked her all that much, but she deserved better. I wanted there to be a reason she left Australia and didn't go home for years that also served as a good reason for her to suddenly go back, and I hope this was a good one!

I also hope you guys liked the little glimpses into Australian life – yes, it really is true that Angus is a common name here; I've known seven or eight, a friend graduated high school with four, and we have at least three AFL footballers and two military commanders with that first name, off the top of my head! Mac's last line in this ep is a little in-joke for Australians – we have an ad here for Latitude Finance personal loans staring Alec Baldwin, who says something about the parma being a pizza and a schnitzel consolidated into one easy-to-manage meal.

There'll be an episode tag for _Detours_ for this ep. It's called Souvenir, and here's the summary:

Cage takes the team shopping for tacky souvenirs in the downtime they've got between their really long debrief and really long flight home. Or, Riley can do romance too, Diane is one lucky woman and a sheep called Pythagoras.

I think it'll be up on Tuesday or Wednesday.

And here's the press release for the next episode:

3.15, (Safe)House to Home. The team must retrieve the illegitimate son and daughter of the US ambassador to Colombia, who are being held hostage by their mom. Meanwhile, Cassian is brought to the Phoenix, and Diane, Jill and Beth confront Matty.

Thoughts in 3.01, Improvise: Oh, wasn't that a ride! I really enjoyed that – I love how Mac _Mac_ was in the ep, with his banter with Jack and their bromance and the way he saved his dad's life at great risk to his own without any thought whatsoever (and then dramatically handed him his knife and refused to talk to him) and how he came back for Jack but is returning to Nigeria for love (but as we can all guess from the end of that ep, he's never going back for good…poor Nasha and poor Mac), though I kinda want to knock both MacGyvers upside the head (like I think Matty, Jack and Nasha all want to) and tell them to just sit down and have a chat. They really, really need to do that – problem is, James is still a bit of an ass who refuses to understand/accept that Mac is behaving somewhat reasonably, all things considered, and that he _really_ has to start again with him instead of doing the whole _I'm your dad_ thing, while Mac is stubborn and hurt and won't give an inch, because he's Mac. Jack was also great in this ep; I do love how he decided to chase Walsh down so that very convoluted chain of events would happen (so Jack!). I also really liked the chat Matty and James/Jim had at the end – their dynamic is very interesting, especially with what James let slip about hiring Bozer (though that's a continuity error, since Thornton hired him…I guess the first time probably didn't count though, since she was a traitor and all…). I like Bozer/Leanna better this season, their dynamic seems better, though Leanna is kinda like 'new Cage' right now? (I mean, with the chopper and the badass scene at the start – though Bozer's reactions are great!). Nasha is now officially my second-favourite canon love interest for Mac of all time – she had so little screen time, but I really like the way she implicitly understands Jack and Mac's relationship, and that she nudges him to talk to his dad, and the fact that she seems to get and accept that the world needs Mac, that she has to share him with the world but doesn't doubt his feelings (she doesn't ask for promises, but gives him a reminder to come back, and she's so happy when he tells her he is returning). (Seriously, why do I always like the ones that he can't possibly have a future with?) (In fact, I liked them so much I wrote an episode tag centered on their relationship - check it out, it's called _The One Who Makes Magic!)_. I get what they're trying to do – Mac's definitely going to have some kind of voiceover about sacrifices at some point, and possibly maybe even a chat with his dad about having to leave people you love. I'm also really hoping that Jill isn't really dead, but I think that she probably is…


	15. (Safe)House to Home

AN: Thoughts on 3.02, Bravo Lead + Loyalty + Friendship at the end of this chapter, complete with spoilers.

* * *

 **BRANCH OF A MAJOR ACCOUNTING FIRM**

 **(IT'S SUSPECTED OF DOING SOME MONEY LAUNDERING FOR AN ARMS DEALER)**

 **PHOENIX, ARIZONA**

 **(HEY, THAT HAD TO HAPPEN EVENTUALLY…)**

* * *

'…And I said to her mama, ain't she the most adorable thing?'

Jack grinned proudly, every inch a proud papa, wrapping his arm around his 'daughter', Riley, who huffed and crossed her arms with a scowl, every bit an embarrassed daughter.

(They needed to get Riley in so she could hack into the branch's local network to determine if the money laundering was actually happening and who was involved.)

(Luckily, it was Bring Your Daughter to Work Day at the firm, so Jack had been 'sent by head office' and brought along his 'daughter'.)

Riley tugged herself out of her overbearing dad's grip and shot him a _look._

'Seriously, Dad, I'm twenty-eight years old. I'm _not_ a kid. Stop talking about me like I am one!'

The man they were talking to just chuckled, waving them through, and Jack just wrapped his arm around her shoulders again with a grin.

'Come on, kiddo, you know you'll always be my little girl…'

Riley rolled her eyes.

* * *

 **PHOENIX VAN**

 **NEAR (BUT NOT TOO NEAR) THE ACCOUNTING FIRM**

 **PHOENIX, ARIZONA**

* * *

In the van, Bozer and Mac, watching and listening to the scene via Jack's camera-glasses (new and improved with an added microphone thanks to Mac getting very bored on a very quiet day at work four days previously) and Riley's necklace, which had an audio-and-video-recording pendant on it, exchanged grins that were practically smirks.

Bozer stifled his giggles with a hand as he downloaded the recording onto his phone (for later personal use – namely teasing the hell out of both Jack and Riley), while Mac's grin just widened further and took on even more of the character of a smirk, absent-mindedly shaping a paperclip into a ballet slipper.

(Jack was telling another guy they'd run into a story of how young Natalia – AKA Riley – had looked so, so sweet and cute at her first ballet recital.)

(Riley thwacked his side hard enough to hurt a little in retaliation.)

On the screen in front of them, Jill (who was filling in for Matty, who'd been called away on more urgent matters), just crossed her arms and tut-tutted with a fond, slightly teasing smile on her face as Jack launched into yet another tall tale, making Bozer erupt into another fit of giggles and Mac smirk, chuckle and start destroying another paperclip.

'Come on, _boys._ You've got a job to do, remember?'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

As Bozer did a much-exaggerated but honestly flattering impression of Riley kicking a bad guy's butt and being cool and snarky while doing it (Riley rolled her eyes in fond exasperation, Mac gave an amused smile while re-shaping a paperclip and Jack agreed and chipped in enthusiastically) to illustrate exactly how their last mission had gone to Andi (who was listening and nodding politely), Matty strode into the war room.

She arched an eyebrow at Bozer, who really quickly finished off his impression with a rather lame 'and then he fainted', before turning to Andi. The two women had a conversation that was entirely silent and seemingly told through subtle changes in their eyebrows.

(It was really rather impressive.)

Then, as Andi left the room to presumably carry out Matty's orders, their boss walked over to the screen, tapped it and turned to the four of them.

An image of two children, with dark hair and light brown skin, appeared. The boy looked to be about six, the girl younger, maybe three.

'Your mission is to kidnap these two.'

Bozer made a _wait, what?_ face, while Riley raised her eyebrows, crossing her arms. Mac's brow furrowed in thought, while Jack rubbed his hands together and started talking.

'Good old fashioned blackmail, eh? Is their daddy a drug lord? Or is he an ex-Colombian separatist turned merc/assassin?'

Matty shook her head.

'He's the, as of five months ago, former US ambassador to Colombia.' She tapped the screen again, and a photo of a man that Mac recognized as said ambassador appeared. It looked to be of decent quality, but was clearly some kind of surveillance photo that the two people in the shot didn't notice. That wasn't surprising, given how occupied the ambassador seemed to be with the extremely beautiful and much younger Colombian woman in a slinky red dress that he was entwined with. 'The young lady is his mistress and the mother of those kids.'

Bozer made a face.

'Poor Mrs Former-US-Ambassador-to-Colombia.'

Matty gave a very dry, very wry smile.

'It gets worse.' She tapped the screen again, and a video began to play. The beautiful Colombian woman, now wearing very tight skinny jeans, high heels and a white T-shirt that probably cost a small fortune and toting a designer handbag, got out of an expensive-looking armoured car, followed ten seconds later by a pair of Colombian women dressed in neat, clean but inexpensive-looking identical outfits, clearly household staff, each holding the hand of one of the ambassador's children. The children's mother paid them no heed as she strode into a mansion housed in a compound (an actual compound, with a high fence, security guards and plenty of CCTV), followed by the kids and the maids. The video then skipped forward, and two hours later, the two maids re-emerged, but no kids. 'As you can imagine, she's not happy about the ambassador's recall…because it's seriously impacting her cash flow. She's holding their children hostage in an attempt to extort the State Department for millions of dollars.'

Jack let out a low whistle, while the paperclip in Mac's hands took the shape of a long-stemmed rose.

(This was a thorny problem, to say the least.)

(Yes, it was a terrible pun, but it was in his own head.)

(He had very little control over the tornado of thoughts that resided there.)

Bozer seemed to be taking in every detail to use for a movie script at a later date. Riley slapped him in the arm and shot him a _look_ that clearly said _read the room!_

Matty took in the looks on their faces and just nodded in agreement.

'State Department is demanding the Colombians arrest her and send the children to the US to live with their father, granting him sole custody. Colombians are insisting that the kids' mother should have full custody, since they were never married, and that he owes her child support and additional funds to maintain the lifestyle that she and the children are accustomed to. Neither side is budging and this is rapidly descending into a significant diplomatic incident.' She tapped the screen again. 'Additionally, State is concerned about potential blackmailing attempts or even kidnappings of the children while they're unsecured on Colombian soil, leading to the ambassador leaking classified information that could seriously endanger the lives of US operatives.'

Mac dropped his rose-shaped paperclip on the table, quirking an eyebrow.

'So we, foreign agents, are going to kidnap two underage Colombian citizens on Colombian soil, taking them away from their legal guardian and to a foreign country?'

'State is framing it as a rescue mission, but yes, Blondie.' Matty's expression grew very serious and she looked them all in the eye. 'Because this is a kidnapping of Colombian kids on Colombian soil and forcibly removing them from their guardian and the country, if you are caught, you will be disavowed. There'll be nothing we can do to help you.' All four of them nodded in understanding and acceptance, and Matty tapped the screen one last time. A video appeared, a candid, slightly shakily made home video, of the ambassador in a T-shirt and jeans, sitting on the floor and doing a puzzle with his kids, all three of them laughing. The little girl reached over and hugged her dad as the video ended. 'Good luck. Bring them home safe.'

* * *

 **PHOENIX JET**

 **SOMEWHERE OVER MEXICO**

 **ON-ROUTE TO COLOMBIA**

* * *

'…Kinda feels wrong, you know, taking Sebastian and Valeria from their mama…'

Jack shifted in his seat as he mused out loud.

 _Jack's closest personal experience with motherhood, aside from his own mother, is with Diane Davis, who 100% deserves one of those World's Best Mom mugs for Mother's Day._

 _Jack himself, by the way, deserves the matching one._

 _So it's no wonder that he thinks that way._

 _But if what the ambassador writes about Adriana, Sebastian and Valeria's mother, is true…we shouldn't be losing any sleep over taking them away from her._

Apparently, apathetic (except for when they made adorable fashion accessories) and borderline-neglectful (she made sure they had staff to care for them, but absolutely refused to do any of the caring herself and strongly preferred they be kept out of her sight and hearing) best described Adriana as a mother.

Even Murdoc (if you ignored the whole took-his-son-on-a-cross-country-murder-road-trip and got- _really_ -angry-when-he-thought-Cassian-was-turning-against-him bits…which was asking a lot) was a good dad, if you looked at it a certain way.

Now _that_ was a disturbing thought.

* * *

 **ROOFTOP NEAR-ISH ADRIANA'S COMPOUND**

 **(TENTH ROOFTOP IN TWO HOURS)**

 **(MAC AND JACK ARE GETTING PLENTY OF CARDIO)**

 **BOGOTA**

 **COLOMBIA**

* * *

Jack lowered his binoculars with a groan.

'Ain't got a decent line of sight from here, either.'

Adriana was either paranoid, or just damn lucky.

Probably both.

They couldn't see into her compound at all from anywhere on the ten rooftops they'd tried.

Mac stopped staring, squinting slightly, at some of the other rooftops and taking notes in permanent marker on a newspaper he'd gotten from…somewhere. Capping the marker, he tapped his earpiece.

'Riley, Boze, how's it going?'

Bozer and Riley were in the hotel room that was serving as their base of operations for the mission. Bozer was putting the finishing touches on the wardrobe of disguises they'd brought with them (Bryce Villanova was here in Bogota to do an edgy new photoshoot with models Riley and Mac, assisted by Bozer, an up-and-coming, eccentric young designer), while Riley tried to hack into Adriana's CCTV system.

The hacker's voice was very dry with more than a hint of frustration in it when she responded.

'I got into the CCTV system, but the feeds are useless.' Both Mac and Jack could see her crossing her arms, raising her brows and leaning back in her seat, with _that_ look on her face, in their minds' eye. 'She put _duct-tape_ over the cameras.'

Yeah, Adriana was definitely paranoid.

Jack snorted.

'Talk about a crazy conspiracy theorist!'

Mac turned to look at his partner, an eyebrow arched in disbelief.

(In the hotel room, Bozer and Riley exchanged an amusingly-similar look.)

Jack just looked at him as if to say, _what?_

Mac just shook his head in fond exasperation with an awful lot of exasperation, glancing down at the newspaper in his hands.

He looked at it for a beat, his thinking face appearing instantly, before it changed to his _I-have-an-idea_ face.

He turned back to Jack, a little smirk-smile growing on his face.

'I can get us a line of sight.' The smirk-smile grew a touch sheepish. 'Well, not a _direct_ line of sight…but for our purposes, it'll do.'

Jack spread his hands wide, shooting Mac an incredulous look.

(By now, Mac was usually already putting together his thingamajig, giving half a science lecture as he went.)

The blonde rolled his eyes (in a way that Jack swore up and down was affectionate), and flung the jimmied-open door that led down from the roof open and started down the stairs two at a time, motioning for Jack to follow.

'We have to go do a little shopping first!'

* * *

 **ONE HOUR AND FORTY-SIX MIRRORS LATER**

* * *

Mac muttered to himself, drawing some diagram in thin air, then nodded once, decisively, and shifted the last mirror, turning it slightly clockwise.

Then, he gestured to the mirror placed opposite and slightly offset from the one he'd just moved, and Jack, who was already trying to come up with a way to explain forty-six mirrors on the expense report (Matty would be cool with it, but Oversight was probably gonna ask Mac why he couldn't do it with twenty, since he was sure _he_ could, and sometimes, they got a bean counter or a newbie in Accounts who just didn't _get_ the Phoenix axiom that you didn't question the expense reports from missions Angus MacGyver was on, not even when they included cowboy hats or vitamin A cream or garden gnomes), did a wide-eyed double-take when he realized that he could _see_ a bird's eye view of Adriana's compound.

He looked around the mirror-covered rooftop, and caught glimpses of several other angles, and let out a low whistle, then pointed at Mac.

'Not sure if we should all dread or look forward to the day you lose your patience with your old man and run off to join the circus and create one of those Houses of Mirrors…'

Mac just raised his eyebrows and nodded slowly.

 _A, I don't think I'd last longer than three months away from the Phoenix._

 _It's where my family is; I'd miss them too much to stay away._

 _And…look, I'm really trying not to sound like my dad – we sound too much alike too often for my peace of mind – but I have a gift._

 _A power, if you like._

 _And with great power, comes great responsibility, as your friendly neighbourhood Spiderman knows._

 _If Murdoc or The Ghost or someone else that I might have been able to stop struck while I was away…well, I don't think I'd sleep well for weeks. And if that attack cost me my family…honestly, I'm not sure I'd be able to live with myself._

 _Sadly, in all honesty, I'd probably wind up like my dad._

 _You know, bitter, angry and full of guilt but refusing to deal with it all properly, resulting in being an asshole more than from time-to-time._

 _Not a happy thought, I'm sure we can agree._

 _B, why would I run away and join the circus, of all things?_

* * *

 **TEN HOURS LATER**

 **HOTEL ROOM HQ**

 **BOGOTA**

 **COLOMBIA**

* * *

Mac's clever surveillance system had become useless once darkness fell.

Still, it'd given them a good general layout of the compound (which Riley was now digitizing based on the map that Mac had drawn on some poster paper with his marker, which Jack still didn't know the providence of), as well as some other useful details.

Adriana was definitely really, really paranoid.

The children never, ever came outside. Not even to play in the courtyard in the middle of the compound.

Which was pretty insane, given the security that their mother had.

She might have put tape over the surveillance cameras, but she was definitely not taking the trade-off of no surveillance.

There were regular and through patrols of guards with dogs.

Mac and Jack hadn't managed to spot any substantial flaws in the patrols they could exploit.

Which meant that she'd hired some serious pros.

As Mac did some kind of math on a napkin (something to do with guard rotations) and Riley (probably futilely) kept trying to get _something_ off Adriana's computer systems, Jack flopped into a sitting position on the bed and said what they were all thinking.

'We gotta get inside.'

* * *

An hour and a half later, Riley was wearing a perfect replica of the uniforms worn by employees of the cleaning company that Adriana employed, and the usual cleaners had been told that their services weren't required that day as Adriana had a 'special visitor' that it'd be (by implication) inappropriate for them to catch sight of.

(She was going in to do their initial scouting, since she'd be by far the least conspicuous.)

(Besides, people like Adriana tended to view people like waiters and cleaners as part of the furniture.)

Jack walked with her out of the hotel, cracking jokes as usual. Riley ribbed him back as usual (his domestic skills had left much to be desired when she was a teenager – she remembered very clearly his attempt to clean a casserole dish after he'd burned the casserole he was trying to make to a crisp), and as they reached the bottom of the fire exit, he clasped her shoulder.

'Be careful, Ri.'

He knew full well that she was a good agent and a big girl who could definitely look after herself, but he always worried a little more when she went off on her own.

(It was a little hard to turn off the 'dad' part of himself.)

(He had no idea how James MacGyver could do it so well.)

(He also had a feeling he didn't want to be able to do it that well.)

Riley smiled a little smile back at him, nudged him with her elbow.

'We always are.'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Beth put a couple of _Frozen_ Band-Aids (making sure that at least one was an Olaf one) in her scrubs pocket, as well as a snack-size packet of M&Ms, before stepping out of her office to greet her patient.

(Cassian had been brought to the Phoenix so Matty and a psychologist with a very high security clearance could pick his brain – gently – to try and learn anything about his dad or his dealings that Cassian might not realize he actually knew.)

(Matty had assigned her to give him a health check while he was here, since Cassian had responded well to her and liked her so much – he'd drawn her a picture, which hung pride of place on the wall in her office – last time.)

The little boy was sitting on a prepped infirmary bed behind a curtain…with two burly agents wearing mostly black on either side of him. Cassian looked a little nervous and kept glancing at the two men.

Beth really wanted to narrow her eyes and glare at them, but for Cassian's sake, she just smiled and waved at the boy.

'Hello, Cassian!'

He beamed back at her.

'Hello, Dr Beth!' He jumped off the bed (which made one of the men call out _hey!)_ and wrapped his arms around her. The same man who'd called out made to step forward, but Beth narrowed her eyes at him over the top of Cassian's head and shook her head firmly. He thankfully stayed where he was. When he let go of her, she crouched down, putting herself well below his eye level, and Cassian leaned closer to her, voice quiet and a little scared and very plaintive and every inch his eight years, maybe even younger. 'Do…do _they_ have to stay, Dr Beth?'

Oh, that did it.

She gave him a little smile.

'No, no they don't, Cassian.' She reached into her pocket and handed him the M&Ms. 'Why don't you sit back down and have a snack while I talk to them?'

He smiled back at her, looking relieved and much happier, and bounded over to the bed, sat down again and opened his pack of chocolate.

Meanwhile, Beth looked expectantly at the two guards and led them outside the curtain, ten feet away from Cassian.

'I'm going to have to ask you to leave.'

'No can do, little lady.'

'Boss's orders.'

She _really_ didn't like these guys.

Beth crossed her arms, wishing that she wasn't so short and didn't have to look up at them so much.

(They had at least a foot on her.)

'My name is Dr Taylor. And Matty wouldn't object to-'

'They're not her orders.'

'They're Oversight, the big boss's, orders.'

She was _really_ going to have to give this Oversight a piece of her mind one day.

As angry as she was, Beth forced her voice to be quiet when she responded.

She didn't want Cassian to have to hear this.

'He is a sweet, kind, brave eight-year-old boy who loves to draw, whose favourite _Frozen_ character is Olaf and prefers grape to strawberry on his PB&Js!'

The guard who'd said _hey_ (the one that Beth disliked a little more than the other one) dared to respond.

'His dad-'

Oh, this man was a piece of work.

And if he was following Oversight's orders and example, she really, really, really had to have a word with whoever he or she was.

For the sake of her patients.

'Deserves the prize for Worst Father of the Decade, at the very least.' She jabbed a finger at the air in front of the nearest guard's chest. 'Which means you really should have some sympathy and empathy for him.' Beth paused and took a deep breath, calming herself down and speaking with the rational authority of a medical professional. 'This is the infirmary. In here, my authority trumps Oversight's. So, you two are going to wait outside while I take care of my patient, _please._ ' She tilted her chin up fiercely. 'If Oversight gives you any trouble about that, they can take it up with me.'

* * *

Two hours later, Beth reviewed Cassian's blood test results in her little office.

His Vitamin D levels were low, low enough to elicit some concern and for her to write him a prescription for supplements, but not so low that he was at risk of health issues.

He was otherwise physically healthy, but she had plenty of concerns about her youngest patient.

He was doing remarkably well, all things considered (an amoral assassin for a father was a lot for an eight-year-old to deal with), but seemed lonely and a bit melancholy.

And a light-skinned eight-year-old boy living in sunny LA absolutely should not have Vitamin D deficiency.

She pursed her lips and continued to write her report with renewed fervour.

This was going to have to be an extremely thorough report, with all the 't's crossed and 'i's dotted.

She was quite sure that Matty would be on her side as soon as she raised her concerns, but Oversight was a whole other matter.

* * *

 **HOTEL ROOM**

 **BOGOTA**

 **COLOMBIA**

* * *

'And _the_ Miss Riley Davis is back in the house!'

Bozer grinned and reached out a fist to bump it to Riley's as she strode back into the hotel room, her mission a success.

Mac smiled at her, tossing down a paperclip shaped like Riley's audio-visual-recording necklace, and Jack wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

'Good work, kiddo.'

Riley gave a proud smile, and reached behind her back to unclasp her necklace, tossing it over to Bozer to transfer the intel she'd collected over to her laptop.

* * *

'Mama, can I please take Sebastian and Valeria to the park? Or to go play in the courtyard, at least?'

The cook's nineteen-year-old daughter, a very pretty young woman with long, dark hair and high cheekbones, implored her mother in the kitchen, and the cook, a shorter, rounder and older version of her daughter, shook her head as she chopped vegetables, dumped them in a pot and started stirring.

'Senora forbids it.'

'She's not here-'

The cook shushed her daughter, glancing around furtively, as if fearing they were being eavesdropped on.

(Which was true, since Riley was mopping the kitchen floor on the far side.)

'Sofia, do not say these things. Not here.'

The teenage girl crossed her arms with a frustrated, even angry, huff.

'Children cannot grow up, cannot _live,_ this way!'

With another furtive glance over at Riley, the cook smiled sadly but fondly at her daughter.

'Children are very strong and resilient.'

She leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to her daughter's head, then returned to her cooking.

Sofia returned her mother's smile, but it didn't quite reach her eyes.

* * *

'Sofia!'

Three-year-old Valeria toddled over to the young woman as soon as she saw her in the corridor, pulling away from the harried and exhausted-looking maid who'd been looking after her. She flung her arms around her legs, and was followed a moment later by her big brother doing the same.

Sofia laughed and wrapped her arms around the kids as well, smiling at the maid as Riley dusted some shelves further down the hall.

'I can take them for a few hours, Gabriela.'

The maid smiled at her.

'Gracias, Sofia.'

She hurried off to the servants' quarters to get some much-needed rest, and Sofia and the kids started walking in the opposite direction, towards their playroom.

(Not ideal – outside would have been far better – but it was the next best thing.)

(It had a lot of toys but no windows.)

* * *

Sofia, Sebastian and Valeria all giggled as they enthusiastically knocked over the huge castle they'd made out of blocks.

Destruction over, they all flopped onto the ground, Valeria pillowing her head on Sofia's stomach, and lay there for a moment, catching their breaths, the older girl running her hands through the younger's hair in the way she loved.

Then, Sofia gently nudged the girl into a sitting position, sat up herself and grinned conspiratorially at the kids.

'Do you want to build a blanket fort next?'

Sebastian and Valeria all nodded eagerly, Valeria clapping her hands together.

'Yay!'

Sofia's grin widened.

'Come on, then, let's build the best blanket fort _ever_!'

* * *

As she folded up the last blanket (it was an hour and a half to lunch time, and Sebastian and Valeria were expected in the dining room today for some reason and had to be cleaned and dressed up first), Sebastian tugged on her sleeve.

'Sofia, how long is it until you go away again?'

He looked so sad that her heart broke a little. His little sister, not quite old enough to understand, nonetheless came up to them too, her big eyes sombre.

Sofia's heart broke a little more.

She almost didn't want to go back to America for college again after Winter Break.

She almost thought to stay, because Sebastian and Valeria needed her.

But her Mama and Papa had worked so hard, and she had studied so hard, to get into college in America…

She crouched down so that she was at their eye level.

'I am going again in a week, but I'm going to be back in a few months.' Two crestfallen little faces looked up at her, and she reached out and pulled them both close. 'But I still have a week! We can have a lot of fun in one week! Blanket forts and pillow fights! Making cookies! Building the tallest block tower in the world!'

That, just as she'd intended, made both kids perk up substantially.

(Some things were so much simpler when you were small.)

* * *

'Poor things, we gotta get them out of there…'

Jack gestured at the screen, and started pacing across the hotel room, throwing out some really bizarre suggestions of plans.

(Even weirder than their usual plans, anyway.)

(Somehow, Mac didn't think pretending to be ghosts and haunting Adriana and her guards out of the compound was going to do them any good.)

Behind his back, Mac, Bozer and Riley exchanged a glance, fond and exasperated all at once.

 _A, Jack Dalton is, despite the tough-guy exterior, a softie._

 _B, he is remarkably stubborn once he's made up his mind…but frequently changes it._

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Sitting on one of the uncomfortable chairs in the lobby, Cassian swung his legs, bored out of his mind and unhappy.

(He'd wanted to go see Jill, because she had really cool glasses and an even cooler lab and was really smiley and nice, and besides, he had promised her last time he'd visit her!)

(But the big scary guys that Dr Beth had scared away – he didn't think she was scary, but Mac, who Bozer said was a really bad liar and Cassian trusted maybe more than anyone else said she was, so she had to be – wouldn't let him, made him sit in the lobby between them and wait, even though they were supposed to have left two hours ago but hadn't and wouldn't be for _ages_ because there'd been some Emergency and the people who were supposed to be going with them for security had to do something else more important first.)

He let out a dramatic sigh in a way that only an eight-year-old could, and then, after a moment, with the optimism of an eight-year-old, decided to try one last time.

'Can I please, please, please go see Jill? Just for a few minutes? I _promised_ her…'

* * *

'…but you're not supposed to break promises! That's what Mrs Maple said, and that's what Mac said too! I promised Jill I'd visit her, so I gotta keep that promise!'

Diane walked into the Phoenix's lobby that afternoon (on the request of Matty with the reassurance that it wasn't bad news, but with no other information whatsoever) to find a dark-haired boy who couldn't have been older than eight or nine with his arms crossed, arguing ineffectually with two big men more than twice his size wearing matching scowls.

One of them rolled his eyes.

'Seriously, kid, just put a-'

She'd already started walking over to them as soon as the kid had mentioned Mac, and arrived just in time to arch an eyebrow elegantly at the man, then cut him off with a glare that'd made Riley listen in the midst of her teenage get-my-bellybutton-pierced rebellious phase.

'I'm sure Director Webber won't mind you taking Cassian to visit Jill. _She'd_ welcome the visit…'

'And you are…?'

The man who'd been about to tell Cassian to put a sock in it (or worse) looked rather belligerently at her.

Diane refused to let him disturb her equilibrium with his rudeness and simply responded calmly, coolly.

'Diane Davis. I'm here on the special, personal request of Matty. She needed to speak with me _personally_ urgently.'

The two men exchanged a wary glance and began to speak with each other in low voices that weren't quite low enough for her excellent ears to miss.

(Diane used to think that secret agents were supposed to be subtle.)

(Then her daughter became one, she found out her ex-boyfriend was one and she met a few more.)

'…You know it's not what Webber thinks that matters…'

'…Dalton's one of the few nutty enough to disobey his orders; you really wanna channel him?'

Diane smiled to herself when she heard Jack's name. She had them now.

'Dalton? _Jack_ Dalton? Former CIA, former Delta Force, two-time winner of the Annual Phoenix Foundation Shoot-Out?' They nodded, and Diane nodded levelly in response. 'Good man, good agent, but with several, easily-exploitable weaknesses…'

She used a tone that implied she knew them all.

(Which was true. He had a very ticklish spot just under his left anklebone, and another one just on the edge of his ribs, and there was a spot behind his right ear that could make him just about useless if you stroked it correctly…)

The two men exchanged another glance, before the less belligerent one spoke, almost to himself.

'Well, I guess we can take him to visit Jill quickly, since we got held up and all…probably good to encourage him to be a good guy, keep his promises and all…'

* * *

As they walked down the hallway towards Jill's lab, Cassian looked up at Diane and shot her a grin and a thumbs up when they were out of view of his guards.

Diane smiled at him, and with all the tact and curiosity of a kid, Cassian bounced a little in his steps and spoke.

'Are you Riley's mom?'

Diane smiled a little wider and nodded.

'Yes, I am.'

'You're awesome _and_ pretty just like her!'

Her smile widened further. He was a really sweet kid.

'Thank you!'

* * *

'Jill!'

Cassian bounded away from Diane and threw his arms around the analyst when she came out of her lab to greet them. The blonde woman laughed and hugged him right back.

'Hi, Cassian!'

'I kept my promise! Even though some people…' He punctuated that with a dirty look at the two guards that Diane was pretty sure he'd picked up from Bozer. '…tried to make me break it.' He gestured at Diane. 'But then Riley's mom came and scared them, so I got to come see you!'

Jill grinned back at him, ignoring the looks on the two guards' faces (in fact, ignoring them entirely), and led Cassian into her lab.

'Well, you're just in time! I've got an experiment I need _your_ help with.' She gestured to a metal lab bench in the corner, which had a whole jar full of crayons (wrapped in plain, unbranded white wax paper – they were a Phoenix invention with more field applications than one would think) in various colours on it, as well as small slabs of just about every surface – concrete, brick, glass, tile, chalkboards, whiteboards, drywall, various fabrics and even a skin analogue. 'Think you can draw lots and lots of pictures on those for me?' Cassian nodded excitedly and enthusiastically, seemingly containing himself from running across the lab (Jill had told him very firmly last time that running in the lab was against lab rules, because it could be dangerous) and starting to draw. Jill grinned, and with a flourish, reached into a nearby drawer and pulled out a child-sized lab coat. 'Don't forget your PPE!'

She helped Cassian into his lab coat, then walked over to the bench with him, helping him get onto a stool that brought him to the perfect height for drawing and making sure he was settled. Diane followed, with one last _look_ at the two guards who'd taken up stations by the door, leaning close to Jill to speak quietly into her ear.

'Are those child-safe?'

Jill nodded immediately.

'They're 100% non-toxic _and_ edible. We're hoping agents can use them for make-up and disguises in the field...'

* * *

 **ADRIANA'S COMPOUND**

 **BOGOTA**

 **COLOMBIA**

* * *

Horns sounded repeatedly as the traffic lights seemed to go _slightly_ crazy, the green periods seemingly growing shorter and the red ones longer.

Meanwhile, foot traffic built up just across the road from the compound as several of Bogota's most popular food trucks started setting up shop.

(They'd all been told that there was a huge number of potential customers here, due to an evening street party.)

(Which hadn't really been the case when they'd gotten there – it'd been pretty quiet – but word had quickly spread about the trucks' presence, and the street party had started to spring up anyway, so no-one had any complaints.)

Meanwhile, Mac and Jack, makeshift gas masks over their mouths and noses, waited for one of the very short gaps in the guard patrols of the perimeter of Adriana's compound, the blonde counting down silently on his fingers.

When he reached one, the two of them started to scale the wall with the aid of DIY crampons Mac had put together.

* * *

As they descended the wall on the other side, a guard (without a dog) passed below them.

'Hi!'

He looked up, to see Jack waving and grinning at him (not that he could see, due to the scarf obscuring Jack's face) like a maniac.

He didn't have time to react before Mac sprayed something sweet-smelling at him using the spray can he was holding.

Jack raised his eyebrows as the guard toppled over, sound asleep.

'Wow…you weren't kidding when you said that stuff was quick, brother.'

* * *

As they hauled the fourth unconscious guard into a handy coat closet, Jack whispered loudly to his partner, grousing as always.

'…Seriously, brother, I get it, you had to give us a little cologne to saturate the dogs' noses and all so they won't smell us, but did you have to make it so _stinky_?' He sniffed his armpit, through his makeshift gas mask, and recoiled to make a point. Mac made a disgusted face. 'We stink, man!'

The blonde rolled his eyes as he stuck his head out of the coat closet to check for incoming, then pulled it back in to glance at his partner.

'Just make sure you take a shower…or two…or maybe three before you go see Diane when we get back, and it'll be fine, you'll smell like roses.' He paused. 'Well, like your soap, but you get what I mean.'

As they made their way down the corridor, Jack groused a little more, before (Mac was sure, he couldn't actually see it on Jack's face due to the bandanna over it, but he was sure nonetheless, just from the tone of his voice) smirking.

'You gonna be following your own advice, brother?'

Unbidden, in the little part of his mind not focused on the mission, an imaginary Beth (for some reason, wearing her green-and-white striped shirt and candy-cane-and-holly skirt from Christmas with his favourite leather jacket over the top) popped up and shrugged with a wry, slightly teasing little smile.

' _Well, I've smelled worse. I've also smelled better. At least it's not as bad as the time you went for a dip in the sewer…and it's an excellent idea that drastically reduces your likelihood of needing treatment for mauling, scratches, bites or rabies, so you get brownie points for that…'_

* * *

They were almost at what Riley had pinned down as Sebastian and Valeria's room when a young woman whom they instantly recognized as Sofia opened her bedroom door, wearing pyjamas and a robe, presumably going to the bathroom or for a glass of water.

Wide-eyed, she stared at them for a moment. Mac and Jack stared right back at her, then exchanged a glance.

They didn't want to hurt her or knock her out with Mac's sleep spray (completely safe, but still)…but if she screamed for the guards or tried to stop them, they'd have no choice.

Mac tugged down his bandanna and gave her his best reassuring smile.

'Uh, Senorita, we're-'

Sofia cut Mac off.

'You're American. Are you taking the children to their father?' Mac nodded, face guileless, and Sofia considered for a moment. 'He loves them and he will let them play outside and go to friends' houses and…be kids.' She smiled and nodded, putting her hands over her eyes, then a finger to her lips. 'I didn't see you.'

Mac and Jack (who'd also pulled down his improvised mask) both smiled at her, then pulled their masks back up and kept heading down the corridor.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Mac and Jack, each carrying a deeply-sleeping child (they'd given them a little dose of Mac's sleeping spray – it was much safer for all involved that they were out for this) hurried into the laundry, where they were met by Bozer and Riley, pushing a covered laundry cart.

Carefully, they lowered Sebastian and Valeria into the nest of blankets that Bozer and Riley had made in the cart, and then, the two less experienced agents headed out the servants' exit, pushing what appeared to be for all the world a massive load of laundry.

Jack turned to his partner with a smirk, cracking his knuckles and pulling out his gun.

'Ready to make some noise, draw some attention, cause some trouble, brother?'

They were going to be the distraction for this part of the plan to let Riley and Bozer get the kids to the relative security of the Phoenix van and then several clicks away. They'd rendezvous there for ex-fil.

Mac smirked back.

'You know I'm always down for _that._ '

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Beth strode down the corridor from the infirmary towards Matty's office, a tablet in hand, and looking fiercely determined.

* * *

Diane strolled down the hallway towards Matty's office, where she presumed she'd be meeting her, a look on her face that reminded everyone of a mama bear, or, perhaps more accurately, a lioness, guarding her cubs.

Any and all agents who were even somewhat near getting in her way quickly scurried out of her way.

This was a woman on a mission, and God help anyone who got in her way.

* * *

Checking to make sure that Cassian was settled in and happily drawing, Jill gave the two guards her best stink eye as she walked out of the lab, towards her boss's office.

She was going to get them banned from her lab at the very least.

* * *

'Boss, I have some serious concerns about Cassian's health and well-being that I need to discuss with you…'

'Matilda Webber, there's something else far more important that we need to speak about first…'

'We have to talk about Cassian.'

Matty, standing in the doorway to her office, glanced at the three women before her, from the petite brunette in scrubs holding out a tablet with something fiercely protective in her eyes and the tilt of her chin, to the tall, elegant woman with a cool posture and fire in her lioness's eyes, to the blonde in the lab coat with something strong and uncowed in her eyes that Matty had first seen when she'd had a gun held to her head.

She smiled knowingly, and then, her expression grew more serious.

'I know.' She turned to Diane. 'That's why I called you here. I've got a very special mission for you.'

* * *

 **PHOENIX JET**

 **SOMEWHERE OVER MEXICO**

 **ON-ROUTE TO LA**

* * *

'…yeah, they're doing pretty good, all things considered…' Video-calling Matty on Mac's phone, Jack gestured to Valeria and Sebastian, who were happily eating the yoghurt-topped cereal bars and trail mix from the medical kid and Skyping their very relieved father on Riley's laptop. Valeria grinned and laughed, clapping her hands together. 'They're tough kids…' Diane walked into view on the screen, and Jack did a double-take. 'Darling, what are you doing at the Phoenix?' He turned to his boss. 'Matty, you recruiting her or something? Should I be worried 'bout losing my job or being shot 'cause I left my socks lying around or stabbed 'cause I snored too loudly in the middle of the night?'

Mac didn't even bother to hide his amused grin-smirk, as Matty put her hands on her hips and replied.

'It's an extremely important, need-to-know assignment that Diane has the perfect skill-set for.'

Diane, perfectly in-sync with Matty, just gave a knowing little smile.

'We'll brief you when you get home, honey.'

With that, they hung up.

Bozer reached out and clapped Jack on the back.

'Man, you are so screwed.'

With Matty _and_ Diane plotting, there'd be no possible escape from anything for Jack Wyatt Dalton.

His days of doing whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted were completely, totally, absolutely over. Forever.

Jack, who was grinning, probably because he found the idea of Diane being a badass secret agent really hot (Riley _really_ didn't want to think about that), suddenly paled.

'I am, aren't I?'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

As soon as Mac walked into the Phoenix and met his boss (who was waiting for them at the entrance from the carpark, for some reason) he said to Matty what had been bothering him ever since he'd watched Sofia argue with her mother in Adriana's compound as they walked towards the war room.

'Matty, Cassian can't grow up in a safe house with agents for guardians, we have to find him a real home…'

Matty just smiled in a way that was almost a smirk.

'A little slow on the uptake, Blondie.' They turned the corner and approached the war room, where Cassian was sitting on the brown leather couch, curled up against Diane, who was smiling as he enthusiastically showed her one of his pictures. 'What did you think Diane's special mission was?'

Cassian couldn't be fostered to ordinary civilians. And while there were many great people in the system, working to make life better for kids who'd been dealt a rotten hand, it wasn't the best place to grow up, either.

He also couldn't be raised by agents of the US government, who had to think of security and professionalism and not about raising a kid.

He needed someone to raise him whose only concern was Cassian and helping him grow up to be a happy, well-adjusted, good person.

And that person needed to know the truth about the Phoenix and Murdoc and be able to keep a cool head in a crisis.

Besides, Diane Davis already had security on her.

(She was the girlfriend _and_ the mother of two highly-talented, extremely-important US covert operatives. Three others considered her family. She knew the truth about the Phoenix.)

(An upgrade in security was always easier and used fewer resources than a whole new detail.)

And she really did have the perfect skill-set.

Matty opened the door a crack, letting Cassian's voice drift out to them.

'…That's Mac, and Dr Beth, and her sheep Py…Jill says that Bozer says that Py's really _their_ sheep and it's a fake fur baby, to practice for the real fur baby which is kinda practice for the real baby…'

Mac shot his BFF a _look._ Bozer shot him back a look that was half _who me?_ and half _but it's true, bro!_

Riley smiled, proud of her mother, and Jack grinned in pride too.

'She's gonna do a real fine job.' He reached out and put an arm around the closest thing to a daughter he'd ever had. 'Already done it once, after all.'

* * *

Later, all alone in the war room, Matty pulled out her phone and dialled a number that she had on speed-dial.

She waited for him to pick up, but didn't let him get a word in before she spoke.

'Jim, you need to call in a favour with State…'

* * *

'…and Cassian is being moved into the guardianship of Ms Diane Davis.'

'Matilda, this is going to need to go up for discussion. There are arguments for and against, and security protocols will need to be designed and reviewed-'

Matty cut him off, glancing at the scene in the conference room opposite the war room.

Cassian, Diane and Bozer were reading _Esio Trot,_ with Bozer doing funny voices. Jack watched with a fond smile on his face, his hands crossed behind his head as he lounged in his seat, while Riley was keeping an eye on Mac, Beth and Jill, who were putting together a fun little science lesson for Cassian – it involved tortoise growth rates and the construction of a tortoise-lifting claw. (She seemed concerned that Mac might decide to pull a Mr Hoppy. Thankfully, Beth didn't have a somewhat disturbing attachment to a tortoise.)

(James MacGyver was absolutely every inch as stubborn as his son. Unfortunately, he tended to be stubborn and pedantic about things like this.)

(Mac could be stubborn and pedantic about really annoying things too – like the difference between a snow cave and an igloo, or between a llama and an alpaca – but Matty would take those over James' hang-ups any day.)

'There are no arguments, Jim. A kid can't grow up in protective custody at an undisclosed location while being raised by guards and agents. It was acceptable in the short-term, until I could get the right security and guardian sorted out, but now that I have, he's moving.' She paused, voice growing firmer, making it clear that this was a hill she'd die on. 'I'm not asking your permission, Jim. I'm just letting you know. The full security dossier should be arriving in your inbox any moment now.'

She hung up.

There wouldn't be any problems.

Jim knew better than to say no to her when she was in one of these moods.

He also knew that he wasn't exactly qualified to be commenting on the right way to raise a kid either.

James MacGyver would never, ever win any Father of the Year awards, after all.

* * *

 **TWO WEEKS LATER**

 **THE FORMER AMBASSADOR TO COLOMBIA'S HOUSE**

 **WASHINGTON D.C.**

* * *

'Daddy's got to go out for dinner tonight…' Valeria pouted and Sebastian's face fell as they and their dad entered the house through the mudroom after an afternoon at the park. '…but I'll be here when you wake up, _and_ you've got a really nice, really awesome new babysitter coming to look after you! She's going to be here any minute now…'

On cue, the doorbell rang.

The former ambassador opened the door, revealing a pretty Colombian girl with high cheekbones wearing a University of the District of Columbia sweatshirt.

Valeria and Sebastian grinned, and rushed at her, practically tackling her into a hug.

'Sofia!'

* * *

AN: Let's hear it for the badass ladies of _MacGyver!_ It is pure chance/coincidence (statistically inevitable!) that this ep is timed like this – I planned for Jill to have this role in this ep months before 3.01, Improvise, occurred. I hope you guys like the themes and story of this ep, and were cool with the slight shift away from the usual Mac-(and-Jack)-save-the-day to look at some perhaps more ordinary heroes. I really do hope you like the idea of Diane raising Cassian – honestly, ever since Matty told Diane all about the Phoenix and in that very same episode Cassian was taken by Murdoc (most unexpectedly!), I wondered if Matty had brought Diane into the fold as a guardian for Cassian. (Matilda Webber is always thinking many steps ahead and never does anything without a reason, after all…)

There will be an episode tag in _Detours_ for this, and here's the summary:

Ice Cream, tag to 3.15, (Safe)House to Home. Jack treats the gang to ice cream, unknowingly making one of Cassian's most cherished childhood memories.

Hint, hint – there's a glimpse into the future of this 'verse in there! I'll probably put it up on Tuesday.

Press release for the next episode (there's a time-skip of a couple months involved):

3.16, Supplies to Hospital. Mac and Jack brave treacherous and dangerous conditions to smuggle much-needed supplies to a blockaded Yemeni hospital. Meanwhile, Mac celebrates his 28th birthday and James MacGyver attempts to atone for past sins.

Thoughts on 3.02, Bravo Lead + Loyalty + Friendship: Oh, God, the feels…I really loved this ep, more than Improvise, honestly.

Poor Jill (gonna miss her!)…on the other hand, it was a good (and slightly unexpected) way to bring Mac back into the fold. I do wish that they had taken the 'hard way' and had it come via some level of reconciliation between the MacGyvers and both of them being less stubborn though – though I get it; the show's not one to go very deep and tends to make things more simple, and doing that would require them paying Tate Donovan to appear in more eps (which he might not be available for). I'm really glad Mac and Jack got to have that little chat in front of the jet and at the end (so necessary!) and glad to hear that Mac and Nasha are going to try long-distance (though now I worry that she's being set up to die, with Mac finally catching up with Murdoc in her village in Nigeria – the writers don't seem to like Mac not being single, and Matty did say Murdoc could be anywhere in the world, and they love to make him suffer, so having him lose Nasha permanently at Murdoc's hands because he had to stay in LA and re-join the Phoenix to catch Murdoc to get justice for Jill seems like something they'd do). Also – Bozer, Riley and Leanna getting to go on mission together was great, I loved the _Teen Titans_ references (I love _Teen Titans!_ ) and Riley and Leanna's dynamic was especially great and fun (Bozer is in big trouble but is going to love every minute of it) – I really liked how they showed off each of the character's strengths and skill-sets, and that we got something light but still with some great feels. (I'm still not sold on Bozer/Leanna, but I really like Bozer, Riley and Leanna as BFFs for some reason…)

I'm very glad we got to see some of Jack's Delta days, and the trauma that he carries from it, as well as the lives that his old Delta teammates have built for themselves and that bond of brotherhood they all have, plus him sharing it with Mac. It was poignant and emotional and funny to just the right amount and just _beautiful. This_ is what the show does best, and this is what keeps me (and I assume most of us) coming back for more – not crazy drama or Mac suffering.


	16. Supplies to Hospital

Disclaimer: I wrote this before I saw 3.04, Guts + Fuel + Hope. I planned it all out before Season 3 even started. All similarities are coincidental and have to do with the characters and show that I'm playing with!

Thoughts on 3.04, Guts + Fuel + Hope at the end of this chapter, with spoilers.

* * *

 **MACGYVER'S FAVOURITE DINER**

 **(BOTH THE ELDER AND THE YOUNGER)**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Mac glanced at the cup of coffee sitting opposite him (black, no sugar, no milk), taking a sip of his own (black, two sugars).

If he didn't get here within the next ninety seconds, it'd be on the wrong side of tepid, taking into account ambient air temperate, air flow and effective surface area.

It'd been a while since they'd had any time to work on rebuilding their relationship.

They'd both been so busy.

He'd had that whole saga with Cage and Murdoc, and now helping Cassian settle into his new life with Diane.

His dad had some new obsession, a new target and some leads to follow.

(Which he refused to tell Mac anything about.)

('Need to know, Angus. Don't worry about it.')

Whatever it was, it'd been eating his father up.

(Mac got obsession. He'd most likely inherited his tendency for it from James.)

(Still, he was beginning to learn that dealing with the object of one's obsession solo was not only unwise and unnecessarily dangerous, it hurt the people you loved, the people who loved you, when you didn't let them in, when you didn't let them help.)

(And he _hated_ hurting the people he loved. He might not always be _aware_ that he was doing it, but once he was…well, apologies were in order, and his best effort to not do it again.)

(Even if those best efforts, shamefully, tended to fall short. He was working on it.)

(Somehow, he thought that not hurting the people who loved you wasn't quite as high on James MacGyver's priority list.)

The diner door swung open, and Mac forced himself to not look expectantly, excitedly, like a _kid._

A few seconds later, James MacGyver sat down opposite his son, who looked up from where he was mutilating his empty sugar packets.

The waitress strode up to the two of them, and raised an eyebrow expectantly, her pencil on her notepad.

'Uh…Eggs Benedict, hash browns, please.'

'California Benedict, spinach instead of ham, side of muesli and yoghurt.' Mac raised an eyebrow at his father, who took a sip of his barely-tepid coffee as the waitress bustled away. 'Like Jack, I'm watching my cholesterol levels.'

There was a touch of wry humour on his face, in his voice, as he spoke, and that made Mac smile.

(Times like this, he was the father he remembered. The one he'd loved and idolized and wanted to be when he grew up.)

The younger MacGyver gave a slight, teasing smirk.

'Inevitable for the middle-aged American male.'

His father snorted.

'Yes, so it'll be you in twenty years, Angus.' He arched an eyebrow. 'Perhaps sooner, considering Wilt's cooking.'

Mac gave a chuckle and shrugged.

'Beth will give me a lecture about changing my diet the minute my cholesterol levels start rising beyond normal fluctuations; I'll have plenty of warning.'

James smiled in a way that seemed _knowing_ as he looked at Mac over his coffee cup. The smile reminded Mac a little of Jack and a little of Matty, but he wasn't sure if he could or should welcome _this_ line of conversation from his dad yet, so he pulled out the _New Scientist_ magazine he'd been reading while he'd waited.

(He'd started ripping up sugar packets when he'd finished it and grown bored.)

'I've got a couple of ideas I wanted to run past you…'

* * *

Their eggs had barely been eaten (and James' yoghurt and muesli was untouched) when the older MacGyver's phone chimed.

Mac watched him shift from _Dad_ to _Oversight_ instantly before his eyes as he read the text. Mere seconds later, he was getting up from his seat, pulling out his wallet, and dropping some cash on the table.

He did, however, pause before leaving the booth, and look at Mac.

'This…this was nice, Angus.' Mac had inherited his occasional social awkwardness from him too, even if James hid it better. 'We…we should do it again, sometime.'

Well, he was trying, at least.

Mac swallowed the slight bitterness in his mouth (which he knew wasn't really fair – how many times had _he_ had to run off in the middle of some social engagement or the other?), and nodded.

'When…when will you be back?'

He kicked himself for how much like a kid he sounded.

But…it was his birthday in six days.

'When it's done.' Oversight pulled his coat tighter around himself. 'See you, son.'

Mac raised a hand in acknowledgement, trying not to roll his eyes at the flippant, entirely true and utterly infuriating response his father had given.

(He had to try too. Even if he honestly felt that most of the time, he was doing most of the trying.)

'See you, Dad.'

Mac sat there, staring at the abandoned bowl of muesli in yoghurt, and doing his best to bury that hope that his father would be there for his birthday _at last_ (the hope that would not be buried), until the waitress, a woman old enough to be his mother, came up to him.

'You're staring awful hard at that yoghurt. Want it to go, sweetheart?'

He just nodded.

The microbiome of yoghurt was fascinating.

He could come up with a couple of experiments to throw his mind and his hands into.

Why waste perfectly good yoghurt, after all.

* * *

 **SIX DAYS LATER**

 **MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

Mac smiled and shook his head fondly as he walked through his house, which was covered in birthday decorations, thanks to the efforts of Bozer and Penny (who'd conscripted just about everyone else, except him, since he was the birthday boy and all). He made his way out onto the deck, where Jack was standing, leaning against the railing with his back to the view.

His partner spun around when Mac walked up next to him, resting his elbows on the railing and staring out at LA.

Jack reached out and wrapped an arm around the younger man's shoulders.

'You made it through another year, eh, son?'

Mac's smile widened as he returned the side-hug.

'Thanks, Jack.'

Riley walked out onto the deck, three opened cold beers in hand, and the two men turned a little to face her. Quite deliberately, she handed the first beer to Mac, then passed another to Jack, before putting an arm around the blonde for a side-hug.

When she let go, she held up her beer in a toast.

'Happy Birthday, Mr Can-Do.'

Jack grinned, raising his own beer to Riley's, as Mac did the same, shaking his head a little at the nickname.

'Amen! I'll drink to that!' He pointed at Riley. 'You know, that's a real good one, gonna have to remember it…'

* * *

When Mac walked back inside, Bozer, in the kitchen, pointed very firmly at him.

'Stay outta here, bro! No sneak peeks!'

The blonde chuckled, holding his hands up in surrender.

Bozer was preparing his birthday cake and insisted on keeping it a surprise.

(Mac knew what it was anyway.)

(One of Bozer's famous and incredible eight-layered chocolate cakes, in the shape of several interlocking cogs.)

(Subtle wasn't really _Bozer_.)

(Still, of course he'd pretend to be surprised.)

(After all, he knew the secret ingredient of Bozer's top-secret, special-occasion hot chocolate.)

(Had for years.)

(Bozer was none the wiser.)

(As far as Mac knew anyway.)

* * *

Penny straightened the ridiculous plastic crown on his head with a rather firm motion, and Mac just held his hands up in surrender.

'I'll wear it, I promise!'

* * *

A combination of Nick, Carter and Jill had managed to wrangle the entire Edwards team into party hats.

Nick and Carter were grinning. Jill had a wide smile on her face, and May's hat was on a jaunty angle, matching the smile on her face. Rowena somehow managed to make the sparkly orange cone look elegant, and Alex, who had his arm around his girlfriend, let go of her and held his hand out to Mac, a teasing smirk on his face as he took in Mac's plastic birthday crown.

He tugged the younger agent a little closer, pulling him into a hug (complete with back-slapping, of course).

'Enjoy your twenty-ninth trip around the Sun.'

Mac chuckled.

'I will, thanks.'

* * *

Mac, crouching down, grinned up at Cassian, who'd very proudly handed him a picture he'd drawn for his birthday.

(It showed Mac – dressed like Bill Nye - teaching a science class of people who looked suspiciously like his friends-who-were-family.)

(It was definitely going to go over the mantle. He had some great wood and metal scraps he could make a frame out of for it.)

He carefully set the drawing aside on the coffee table, and hugged the boy with a grin.

'Happy birthday, Mac.'

'Thanks, buddy.'

* * *

A couple minutes later, Cassian had headed over to sample some of the samosas Bozer had made (using Mrs Patel from two doors down's recipe), and Diane smiled fondly as she watched Mac smile softly, affectionately, at the boy, then the lovingly-drawn picture on his coffee table.

'He spent three days on that.'

Cassian had a heart as big as Mac's or Jack's or Bozer's or (even if she sometimes tried to hide it – much less nowadays) her daughter.

Mac's smile widened as he looked over at Diane.

'It shows.'

He meant it, both ways.

Diane smiled a little wider, holding her arms out for a hug.

'Happy birthday.'

* * *

'Happy birthday, Mac.'

Beth stood just inside the front door, holding a very large cardboard box, neatly wrapped in colourful wrapping paper with a pattern of balloons on it, a wide smile on her face.

(The box was so big she had to tilt her chin up a little to be able to see over it.)

(It was odd-looking…but also oddly adorable.)

She handed him the box, which made a distractingly-pleasing series of metallic clanging sounds as he set it down on the floor next to them, before stepping forward for a hug. He tucked his chin over her shoulder, smile widening. Beth rose up on her toes a little to hug him better, which made her arms tighten just a fraction more around him.

(That was also _really_ pleasantly distracting.)

(Her very pretty dress – light blue with yellow flowers, one of those 50s-style dresses with a full skirt – was _not_ helping.)

(It had a hemline that fell to mid-calf and a neckline that was probably suitable for a schoolteacher…but it was still really distracting.)

(He just knew it'd occupy more of his mind over the next few hours than working out exactly what he'd been given for his birthday.)

(Which was saying a lot, because practically every box had made distinctly metallic noises when he'd shaken them gently.)

 _Don't be so surprised._

 _Some things are more…fascinating…than science._

 _Not very many things, but…well, between you and me, I'm hugging one of them right now._

* * *

Matty, a beer in hand, paused in her stroll from the kitchen back towards the deck and smiled at the view of the young agent and young doctor, heads close together and talking about something to do with the history of birthday decorations.

She raised her beer a fraction in a silent toast.

'Happy birthday, Baby Einstein.'

* * *

Bozer had already put the burgers on the grill out on the deck (where everyone had congregated to chat, share embarrassing stories about Mac and eat snacks) when there was a knock on the door.

Mac, who was just ducking out of the bathroom, furrowed his brow and headed over to the door. He checked the peephole (he'd learned his lesson about opening the door without checking who was on the other side), then opened it immediately to reveal his father.

'Dad? I thought you were in Costa Rica, chasing a lead?'

The older MacGyver gave an awkward half-shrug.

'It could wait a day.' He passed over the rectangular box he was holding in his right hand, wrapped in butcher's paper. 'Happy birthday, son.'

Mac took the box and smiled.

'Thanks, Dad.'

His father smiled back at him, looking a little less awkward, and then reached into the bag he had in his other hand and pulled out a Sonic the Hedgehog piñata.

Mac stared at it for a moment, then raised an eyebrow at his dad, who shrugged again.

'You wanted one for your ninth birthday…'

'And you wouldn't let me have one because you thought my fondness for an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog from a video game was childish and had gone too far.'

He couldn't help the touch of bitterness that leeched into his voice.

He'd been _nine._

Every bit a kid.

And all he'd wanted for his birthday was his new best friend Bozer, his granddad and his dad to all be there and a Sonic the Hedgehog piñata.

James MacGyver just nodded, and held out the piñata to his now very-much-grown son.

'I'm not saying I was right.'

That was said softly, apologetically, even.

Said in a way that made it sound like, _I was wrong._

(Not that James MacGyver would ever say those fateful words out loud.)

After a moment of the two of them staring at each other, Mac gave a little smile and took the piñata.

This was the closest his dad would come to apologizing.

And it at least seemed to serve the same purpose, more or less. Starting that conversation between them. Helping them to rebuild their relationship.

(Or, more accurately perhaps, build a new one.)

* * *

An hour and a half later, after they'd all eaten their fill of Bozer's incredible-as-always burgers, Mac and his dad were in the front yard, hanging the piñata from a tree.

Mac motioned for his father to lower the piñata a couple of feet, to well below what'd be shoulder level for him.

(Piñatas, like skee-ball, were fun for all ages.)

(But they were always more fun for kids.)

(Cassian was definitely more excited about it than Mac was.)

(Even if explaining what in the world a Sega Genesis was to the eight-year-old made him feel a little old.)

Piñata secured, father and son stood in silence, staring at the cardboard head of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Eventually, Mac broke the silence.

There was a conversation they had to have. The piñata was a good starting point for it.

'I was so angry when I was a kid. I was so mad that you couldn't have waited a few more days to leave, spent my tenth birthday with me, so I'd have that at least-'

'I had a mission at the time that could not wait, Angus.'

Mac pushed away the little stab of hurt those words shot through him.

What had he expected his dad to say? Something sappy about how he should have waited those few days, but couldn't bear to, because then he wouldn't have been able to leave?

There was silence again, this time with more tension through the air, before James broke it.

'Harry told me how you were.' He paused. 'He stayed up all night when you slept over at Bozer's the night before, trying to get me to come back, because you'd be devastated if I didn't come back in time.'

Mac glanced at his father, then stared into the distance for a moment. He hadn't known that.

 _I guess as my dad put it, my apparent 'greatness' comes from him._

 _Which I'd dispute, because both Mom and Grandpa were pretty brilliant too._

 _But he was right about the other part._

 _Grandpa made sure I'd grow into a good man._

 _He made sure I'd learn from his example._

After that beat of silence, Mac swallowed and continued.

'I waited the whole party for you. Swore up and down to everyone who asked, including Darlene Martin, that my dad was going to be home any minute now.' He paused, trying to let go of the worst of the bitterness and anger and _still-hurting little boy_ in his voice. He probably didn't succeed. 'Grandpa made me do the cake twenty minutes before everyone had to go home.' James studied his face for a beat, before simply nodding in acceptance. Mac gestured at the piñata dangling from the tree. 'This piñata, Dad? It's not going to cut it.' It was a touching, sentimental gesture. Sometimes, in moments that he wasn't all too proud of, Mac was surprised that his dad remembered things like that. But it was not going to make up for years of hurt and lies and abandonment. (As far as Mac was concerned, the whole _I-kept-an-eye-on-you-and-steered-the-entire-course-of-your-life-without-you-having-a-clue_ thing did not count as not abandoning him, and was even worse than actually abandoning him. He'd have forgiven James a lot easier and they wouldn't have this complicated relationship that might be the only unsolvable problem either of them had ever encountered if his dad had simply abandoned him, unable to bear the constant reminder of his dearly departed wife, and started a new family.) He took a deep breath. 'But it's a start.'

* * *

Twenty minutes later, the remnants of the piñata were on the grass under the tree, next to a foam-padded bat that Bozer had dug out from somewhere in his and Mac's house (they never threw anything out; you never knew when it could be useful), and a grinning Jack was running around the yard, being chased by Cassian because he'd stolen most of the candy.

(Riley just glanced at her mother with an eyebrow cocked, and Diane simply smiled one of her knowing little smiles, both women with plenty of affection in their eyes.)

Mac, meanwhile, smirked as his _I-have-an-idea_ face appeared.

'Hey, Boze, remember that time we caught Archimedes in the woods near Donnie Sandoz's?' Bozer scrunched his face up for a moment (Archimedes had escaped so frequently, he and Mac had spent a lot of time chasing and catching the dog), before he, too, smirked. Mac's smirk widened a bit as he gestured to Jack and Cassian, who were still doing a pretty good Road Runner and Wile. E. Coyote impression, both of them laughing their heads off. 'We should level the playing field…'

 _After all, Jack's got a couple of feet on Cassian._

 _Plus years of experience and training as an elite soldier and covert operative._

 _Not really fair, is it?_

* * *

Standing off to one side, sipping beer, Matty smiled as Cassian, Bozer, Mac and Jack played some kind of game that involved tossing M&Ms into each other's mouths (Jack had forgiven the two younger men for their intervention). She looked up at James as he, too, watched the scene, something far away, wistful, in his eyes, and smiled encouragingly at him.

'Today, you did the right thing, Jim.'

He'd long since grown used to and accepted the fact that Matilda Webber spoke to him like that.

That she was just as stubborn as he was, and not that he'd admit it, right just as often as he was.

And more frequently right than him when it came to matters like this.

(He had a lot of respect for her.)

(She'd have been – was, really – a better parent than he'd ever be.)

(Not that he'd admit that to anyone.)

(Hell, Jack Dalton was a better father than he'd ever been or ever would be.)

(He definitely wasn't admitting that.)

So, he just nodded and smiled, sipping his own beer.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

There was a map of Yemen on the screen when Mac, Jack and Riley walked into the war room. They all exchanged a glance, and Mac reached for a paperclip.

Given the current situation, any mission in the war-torn country in the midst of a humanitarian crisis was going to be hard…and heart-breaking.

Matty, standing at the front of the room, just nodded in agreement and acknowledgement, and tapped the screen, bringing up images of an overcrowded, run-down hospital.

'This is Al Thawrah Hospital. It's the major public hospital in Hodeidah, and it's almost out of nearly all essential supplies.' Mac's expression grew even grimmer, as the paperclip in his hands took the shape of a crescent. He reached for another one, which quickly became the more-recognizable 'square' cross symbol of the Red Cross. The Saudi-backed government coalition (which the US was also backing, albeit more indirectly) were blockading the country's major ports, which were in Houthi-rebel-controlled areas, causing mass starvation and shortages of other crucial supplies. 'In secret negotiations, US diplomats have extracted concessions from Houthi rebels in exchange for a large shipment of clean water, food and medical supplies.'

Mac, Jack and Riley exchanged another glance, before Jack crossed his arms, looking rather belligerent.

'What kind of concessions?'

 _In an ideal world, water, food and medical supplies for civilians should never be used as bargaining chips._

 _Unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world._

Matty looked about as apologetic as she ever would about anything to do with their jobs.

'It's need-to-know.'

Mac sighed.

'And we don't need to know.' He gestured at the pictures of the hospital. 'We just need to smuggle the supplies through the blockade.'

Matty nodded.

'The US government can't be seen to be doing deals with the rebels. As always, if you're caught, you'll be disavowed and will probably spend the rest of your lives in a Saudi Arabian prison.'

The three of them all nodded seriously, then Jack headed for the door.

'Come on, what are we waiting for? Let's bounce! The people of Yemen need our help!'

Mac managed a little smile as he tossed the crescent and cross paperclips onto the coffee table.

Jack always managed to distill even complicated situations down to what _really_ mattered.

* * *

 **PHOENIX JET**

 **SOMEWHERE OVER WEST AFRICA**

 **ON-ROUTE TO DJIBOUTI**

* * *

'…What I'm saying, brother, is a leopard don't change his spots!'

Jack gestured emphatically at the file in front of him, which contained a primer on their local contact, Salim al Khulani, a former warlord who'd allied himself with the Saudi-Hadi-government coalition, before undergoing a change of heart, deserting and becoming some kind of cross between Han Solo and Robin Hood.

(He ran the blockade frequently in small, fast boats, smuggling small amounts of supplies in, or very sick civilians out.)

He'd agreed to assist in the operation to get a much larger boat of supplies through the blockade.

Mac gestured to his own copy of the file.

'He's spent the last two years risking his own life to help other people, Jack, without any hints of being a double agent.'

Riley gestured to her laptop.

'I have video footage. Lots of video footage.'

Jack crossed his arms and made a _humph_ noise.

'All I'm saying is, we gotta be careful.'

'Aren't we always?'

* * *

 **SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE**

 **(WELL, IT'S ON THE GULF OF TADJOURA)**

 **DJIBOUTI**

* * *

'As-salaam 'alaykum. Hello, and peace be upon you.'

Salim, a surprisingly young man of thirty-five with a short, neat beard, held out his right hand to Mac, who shook it with his own with a smile.

'Wa 'alaykum salaam.'

The smuggler's eyebrows rose slightly and he smiled and gave a little head-shake.

(People never expected a blonde young American to know much Arabic. Or really any at all.)

Salim then held out his hand to Jack, who took it and shook it briefly with a curt nod.

'Howdy.'

Mac shot his partner a _look_ as Salim turned to his men to start organizing the loading of the supplies onto the boat they'd acquired for the mission.

Jack just crossed his arms stubbornly.

'Leopard. Spots.'

* * *

 **CAMP LEMONNIER**

 **DJIBOUTI**

* * *

Riley, in a small but secure room that'd been provided by Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa command, spoke into the microphone on her headphones as she brought up satellite imagery.

'Got everything loaded up?'

* * *

 **SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE**

 **DJIBOUTI**

* * *

Jack watched as Mac, assisted by Salim and a couple of his men, secured the last tarp over the last set of boxes.

'Yeah, we're about to get going, Ri.' He paused. 'See you on the other side.'

'Be careful. The weather forecast isn't looking so good. They're forecasting storms and turbulent seas.'

Jack waved a hand with quite a bit of bravado.

'Eh, we'll be alright, Riles. We're all tough.'

* * *

 **NONDESCRIPT FISHING BOAT**

 **(AT LEAST, THAT'S WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE)**

 **RED SEA**

 **40 MILES OFF DJIBOUTI**

* * *

'I'm not gonna die, am I, brother? I'm too young and handsome to die!'

Mac rolled his eyes at his partner's theatrics.

The boat had hit the predicted inclement weather, and now they were pitching and rocking. It was made worse by the fact that aside from a couple of the men (unarmed – mostly – and disguised as simple local fishermen), they were all in the hold of the boat, which was stuffy and windowless.

To be fair to Jack, the seasickness _was_ pretty awful.

Some of the worst he'd ever experienced.

As he tried to stare into the middle distance (it'd help the queasiness), his eyes were caught by some cardboard scraps.

A kernel of an idea growing in his mind, he reached out, grabbed it and started making some strategic cuts and folds.

* * *

A few minutes later, there were a couple of makeshift fans in the hold, increasing air flow.

It really did seem to help reduce their feelings of queasiness.

Jack reached out and clapped his partner on the shoulder, partly in pride (Salim's men were looking on as Mac built a third fan, rather awed) and partly in thanks.

'Now _that's_ a good idea, brother.'

Mac finished the fan, winding up the pen-and-rubber-band rig that kept it running (it'd need rewinding every couple minutes, but it was far better than nothing) and set it down before jogging his partner lightly with his elbow, tone teasing.

' _Most_ of my ideas are good.'

Jack raised an eyebrow at him.

'Portaloo. In a hurricane. In Micronesia.'

He'd nearly puked his guts out several times that day.

Mac looked a little sheepish, but shrugged anyway.

'A, we survived, and B, Jill managed to reconstruct those documents…'

Jack arched an eyebrow at him as he trailed off, and a couple of the men, who were mostly younger than Jack but older than Mac, chuckled. One of them spoke.

'Salim once decided that we should run aground. Deliberately.'

'To be fair, we did get away from those Saudi soldiers.'

And then, just like that, they were all sharing war stories.

Mac smiled as he wound up the fans again.

 _Distraction is an excellent cure for seasickness._

* * *

Mac and Jack were in the middle of a slightly-exaggerated and free-of-all-classified-info retelling of a mission off the coast of Iceland that'd involved some really rough seas when Salim climbed down into the hold, having been talking to the man who was driving the boat.

He reached into the messenger bag he had slung across his body and started pulling out packets of saltine crackers and passing them out.

Mac smiled as he received one, ducking his head in thanks.

'Thank you.'

Salim smiled back, and passed another pack of crackers to Jack, who gave a perfunctory and not particularly polite little nod.

The warlord-turned-smuggler seemed mostly nonplussed, though Mac got the impression he expected this sort of treatment.

Mac sighed internally as he bit into a cracker.

Jack was really, really stubborn once he'd made up his mind.

But he, like Mac, also believed in the goodness of people, and frankly, Mac had no idea why Jack had decided to fixate so much on the idea that Salim hadn't actually reformed and was playing some kind of long game.

(Mac got why it'd cross his mind – honestly, it had crossed his too; he was a covert operative who'd experienced his fair share of betrayal – but he didn't get why Jack was being so…well, _Jack_ about it.)

(Actually, that was the explanation in itself, wasn't it?)

(Jack was _Jack._ )

* * *

'Guys, you've got a government patrol heading your way. ETA of just under an hour.'

Not long after nightfall, Mac and Jack exchanged a glance as Riley addressed them over Mac's phone.

Then, mere seconds later, Mac held his hand out to his partner.

'Give me your phone.'

Jack gestured at the phone in his hand.

'Why can't you use your own for once?'

Mac gestured to the hacker who was still on the screen.

'We're in the middle of a phone call!'

Riley raised her hands.

'Oh, _do not_ get me involved in this, Mac. I'll call you two back if I have any more updates.'

And with that, she hung up…just as Jack realized that his partner had stolen his phone right out of his pocket.

'Brother, we had a talk about this, you can't just _take_ my stuff-'

Mac prised the cover off with his Swiss Army knife and started doing something to the innards of what had been Jack's phone.

'Sorry, there's no time!' He pulled out a paperclip and started doing something with it and the insides of Jack's poor phone. 'I have to turn this into a radar jammer…' That'd go a long way towards keeping them hidden from the blockading ship, but when they got within visible distance, it wouldn't do them any good. '…and make us invisible.'

He started rushing off towards the other side of the hold, still working on his DIY radar jammer. Jack was left with no option but to follow him, still holding Mac's phone.

'How are you going to do that, man? You keep saying you ain't a wizard and can't actually do magic…'

* * *

Jack obediently taped the circle of green soft-drink-bottle plastic over the industrial-powered flashlight, then handed it over to his partner, who leaned over the side of the hull, a little too far for Jack's taste, and attached it to some kind of rig he'd put together.

'Alright, so how's lighting us up like a Christmas tree gonna help make us invisible? 'Cause the way I see it, this defuse lightning camouflage sounds like nonsense…'

Mac popped back up again and pointed at another, similar rig he'd put together halfway down the boat, directing one of the men who'd been watching him attach the flashlight, who just nodded and got to work attaching another flashlight. Then, he turned to his partner.

' _Diffuse lighting_ camouflage. We're going to use the principle of counter-illumination.' Jack didn't look any more enlightened. Mac made one of those slightly-apologetic and still somehow slightly exasperated gestures he made when he was told to explain again, but in English and with smaller words. 'We're going to make the brightness of this ship match the night sky behind us, making our silhouette harder to see.'

'Why didn't you just say so?'

Mac just sighed in a very long-suffering way, already getting to work on another one of those rigs he'd made up using mostly spare rope and some nails.

'I did!'

* * *

Mac pursed his lips as he finished attaching the last flashlight to the last rig, which was as yet unattached to the ship.

This had to go onto the bow, which required climbing along the outside of the ship itself, pretty much relying on finding handholds and footholds in the rough wooden body.

It was pretty dangerous.

He should do it himself, but he had a whole heap of calculations to do to calibrate precisely how many of the flashlights to turn on and to what level (he'd thankfully rigged up a controller – using his own phone – so they wouldn't have to do it manually, but he still had to do the math) and they were running out of time…

Riley said they'd be within visible distance of the patrol ship within ten minutes.

Abdul, one of the older members of Salim's crew, ran up to him with a pen and a large piece of cardboard, which Mac accepted gratefully. His captain gestured at the writing utensils, then at the rig in Mac's other hand with his head.

'I can hang the flashlight; you do the math.' Salim gave a wry smile. 'Any one of us can hang a light, but you are the only one who can do such complicated calculations.'

The first thing that wanted to come out of Mac's mouth was that the calculations weren't really that _hard_ , simply tedious and with a lot of variables, but he managed to rein that thought in. Instead, he smiled back at Salim and handed him the rig and the flashlight.

'Thanks.'

* * *

Jack watched as Salim swung first one leg, then the other, back onto the relative security of the ship's deck.

He noted the relief in many of the men's eyes that he hadn't slipped and fallen into the sea and possibly to his death.

This was a man who was a popular and respected leader.

The kind of man that others would follow into hell, because they knew he'd go there for them.

Maybe leopards could change their spots.

He was pretty sure his partner could come up with a way to make that happen.

(Mac had dyed his hair orange while they were in Afghanistan, somehow, after all.)

* * *

They all held their breaths as the patrol ship came within five hundred yards.

Then, when they heard the unmistakeable sound of it chugging away, followed a minute later by Riley saying that it was definitely heading away (over Salim's phone, as both Mac's and Jack's were no longer fit for their intended purpose), they let it out.

Jack grinned at his partner, putting an arm around his shoulders briefly.

'Always knew that defuse lightning stuff would work!'

' _Diffuse lighting_ , Jack. _Defuse lightning_ is just…nonsense!'

Mac's tone was very exasperated. He was pretty sure Jack – who was not stupid, even though he sometimes really acted it – was doing this on purpose.

Leaning against the opposite wall of the ship, Salim gave an amused smile, before it turned a little more sympathetic as he made eye contact with the blonde as Jack started telling everyone, whether they'd listen or not, all about _defuse lightning_ camouflage.

* * *

An hour and about thirty miles later, Salim's phone rang, and he answered, before holding it out to Mac and Jack.

'It is for all of us.'

Riley's face was on the screen, and she looked very serious and grim.

'There's been a skirmish and a couple of airstrikes right next to Hodeidah's port. Hospital staff can't get there to pick up the supplies, and judging from these sat images I'm getting, you won't be able to land there anyway. We've arranged a new rendezvous point, I'm sending you the coordinates and the name of the nearest landmark now…'

Salim's phone beeped with a text, and they all read it through the notifications. The smuggler's face fell.

'I recognize this place. It is a good place to land a little boat, but this one is too big…'

Mac and Jack exchanged a worried glance, before the Texan clapped a hand on the younger man's shoulder, pasting an optimistic grin on his face.

'Well, if anyone can work out how to stick a big boat in a small hole, it's Mr Can-Do here…' Jack made a face. 'That sounded weird, didn't it?'

Mac had already raised an eyebrow when Jack started mentioning relative boat and hole sizes, and just nodded. He turned to Salim.

'You're far more familiar with the terrain and the smuggling business. Got any ideas?'

Salim pursed his lips, thinking.

'One or two.' His expression turned wry again. 'How many do you have?'

Mac's face scrunched up a little as he mentally sorted through the explosion of ideas in his brain that'd gone off the moment Salim said he'd recognized the place and that their boat was too big that hadn't been discarded yet.

'Uh…eight? No, wait, nine.'

It was said without any arrogance whatsoever, just as a simple statement of fact.

Salim gave a little chuckle, despite the situation, and leaned over to Jack.

'Is he always like this?'

'Pretty much.'

* * *

Ten miles.

Only ten more miles, and they would have made it.

As the other ship, bigger and sturdier than theirs, pulled up beside them, and government soldiers (far more rag-tag and rough than ones from movies, these guys really looked more like pirates) carrying semi-automatics jumped on board, Mac and Jack glanced at one another and slowly put their hands up.

Salim did the same, somehow managing it with more dignity.

He looked at the man wearing a captain's uniform, and spoke, his voice even, gaze cool and composed.

'As-salaam 'alaykum, Jamal.'

The captain laughed, a cruel sound, and spat crudely at Salim's feet.

'You really have gone soft, you dog. I did not believe the rumours at first, but now…' He flung one of the tarps off the crates of supplies. '…now you risk your neck to bring food and water and medicine with _Americans_ instead of bringing us victory!' He laughed again, and then grew deadly serious and turned to one of his men. 'Tie their boat to ours. We may as well put their _gifts_ to good use. Show our _guests_ where they will be staying. Bring Salim to me.'

* * *

Sitting in a cell, complete with bars on the door, their hands bound with rope, Mac, Jack and Salim's men exchanged worried glances.

Abdul murmured something that sounded like a prayer under his breath, before glancing at the two Phoenix agents.

'Salim and Jamal were once friends. The best of friends. Jamal was Salim's second-in-command. But then…'

He trailed off. They knew the story from there.

Salim had had a change of heart.

Unfortunately, Jamal had not.

* * *

Far too many minutes later, Salim was dumped into their cell, his hands bound in cuffs, rather than in rope.

He was also badly bruised, and there was blood leaking from the corners of his mouth, his nose and a cut above his left eyebrow.

Abdul and a couple of the other men were at his side as fast as they could be, one of them trying to tear some cloth from his shirt for some kind of makeshift bandage, but Salim raised his cuffed hands.

'It…it is alright. I will be alright…'

Abdul helped him into a sitting position, and all of the men locked in the cell exchanged another worried glance, silence falling on them like a tomb.

Jack broke it, eventually, gesturing towards Salim with his head.

'Why'd you do it? You know, switch sides and betray your best friend and really piss him off, give up everything you had to be a Robin-Hood-Han-Solo?'

A couple of the men looked rather confused at the _Robin-Hood-Han-Solo_ descriptor, but Salim just gave a soft little smile, which looked incongruous with his bloodied and bruised face.

'Someone put me in front of a mirror, and refused to let me look away from my sins.'

And suddenly, it hit Mac.

Glancing at the door, making sure that their guards were out of earshot, he leaned close to Jack, and whispered in his ear.

'I know how to get us out of here.'

Jack, to his and his years of experience's credit, managed to school his expression into something quite neutral, and leaned over to the next man to pass on the message, before turning back to his partner.

'How are you gonna do it?'

 _That_ look appeared on Mac's face.

'Oh, I'm going to get them to throw me overboard.'

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, still spewing Arabic insults, Mac was dragged onto the deck. Jamal's eyes were cold as he gave his orders, and only seconds later, Mac was hurled into the ocean.

Just before impact, he forced himself to relax his muscles and to take a deep breath.

Once underwater, he swam as best as he could, considering his bound hands, towards the ship, finding a rough edge of slightly-rusted metal, just as he'd been counting on.

He raised his wrists, moving them against the ridge as best as he could, using it as a makeshift blade.

Thankfully, the rope, of poor quality and well-used, was easy to cut through.

Hands free, he kicked back up to the surface, exposing his head for a second for a quick, deep breath, then dove back under again, pulling his Swiss Army knife out of his pocket.

(No-one ever thought to confiscate it.)

(At least, no-one who'd never seen him in action.)

* * *

' _And then, I'm going to cause some chaos. Nothing that'll sink the ship, but plenty to cause a distraction…and that's where you guys come in.'_

* * *

Back in their cell, Salim gave a wry smile.

'His command of our language is excellent. So is his vocabulary. His pronunciation leaves much to be desired.'

Jack chuckled.

Apparently, the same was true of Mac's Mandarin.

They heard some screeching noises, and then the ship came to a sudden, jerky stop. There was shouting in Arabic and the sound of boots thumping as their guards suddenly ran towards what they assumed was a bigger threat.

Jack, Salim and the men exchanged a glance, before Jack opened his fist to reveal the already-re-shaped paperclip Mac had passed to him. He scooted over to Salim and started picking the lock on his handcuffs.

* * *

' _After that, there's the simple matter of taking the ship…'_

* * *

Jack kneed the man in the stomach, making him emit a loud _oof,_ before head-butting him to knock him out.

'Oh, yeah!'

He crouched down to grab the man's semi-automatic, and quick as a flash, shot the guy who was about to shoot Abdul, before running further down the corridor to help Salim, who was fending off a _very_ angry Jamal.

* * *

' _And then you'll have to pick me up before a shark gets me. Which is statistically highly improbable, but I'd appreciate being fished out ASAP.'_

* * *

Jack scanned the waves around them, looking for his partner's thankfully-distinctive, overly-blonde head.

'Come on, son, come on…'

It'd been ten minutes and no sign of Mac.

Ten of the longest minutes of Jack's life.

He'd seen Mac nearly die far too many times for his (or Mac's) own good.

But there was something about losing him (nearly losing him, Jack told himself firmly) in the vast expanses of the ocean that was really getting to him.

Nothing like the ocean to make you realize that you were really tiny and insignificant and powerless.

Abdul pointed into the distance.

'There he is!'

Sure enough, there was Mac, blonde hair plastered all over his head, treading water. Jack waved and thwacked the side of the boat with a relieved grin. Salim, who was being patched up by one of the other men, smiled in relief too, as Abdul started directing the helmsman to steer them closer to Mac.

* * *

With a grin, Jack lowered the rope down the side of the ship. With a matching grin, his partner grabbed the other end, and started climbing, as Jack, Abdul and another man braced themselves as counterweights.

When the sopping-wet blonde reached the deck, Jack punched him in the arm, then pulled him into a hug.

'That was _genius_ , son! Don't _ever_ do it again!'

* * *

 **RENDEZVOUS POINT**

 **SOMEWHERE NEAR HODEIDAH**

 **YEMEN**

* * *

They were just pulling the tarps off the supplies when some beaten-up trucks, all with the universal symbols of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent on them, pulled up.

A woman who couldn't have been much older than thirty, in scrubs and a headscarf jumped out of the driver's seat of the first truck, and started giving orders in rapid-fire Arabic.

Salim smiled, and he and his men began to form a human chain to efficiently pass the supplies over to the hospital workers.

The woman herself jogged over, calling out greetings to most of Salim's men, addressing them by name. Up close, Mac could see a burn scar on her left cheek, which disappeared under her headscarf. A similar scar poked out from under the left sleeve of the long-sleeved shirt she wore beneath her scrubs, the irregular shape extending out onto her hand. They greeted her back, and from that, Mac picked up that her name was Fatima, and that she was a doctor…and was very special to a certain warlord-turned-Han-Solo-Robin-Hood.

He smiled.

Fatima took a box and retraced her steps to load it into the truck she'd jumped out of. Salim followed, holding another box, as Mac and Jack took their own loads over to another waiting vehicle.

As they put the boxes in and turned around, Jack made a little noise in his throat and then held up his hands in a loose gesture of surrender.

'Alright, maybe leopards really can change their spots. At least, maybe leopards named Salim can.'

Mac looked incredulously at him.

' _Now_ you believe he's changed?'

After everything else that'd happened…

Jack simply gestured over to where Salim and Fatima were standing by the truck. They were hardly touching, right hands barely brushing, but the way they were looking at each other, and the way that they were smiling at one another, made it seem as if he'd swept her into a passionate kiss, then maybe spun her around for good measure.

The two Phoenix agents looked away from the intimate moment, and Jack pointed very firmly at his partner.

'There ain't anything a man won't do to get a woman who he looks at like that to smile at him like she's smiling now, so yeah, he's definitely on the side of the angels now.'

 _I agree with Jack that Salim is definitely reformed._

 _I also agree that it probably does have a lot to do with Fatima._

 _But at the end of the day, I firmly believe that change has to come from within._

 _The people you love, they can help, to an extent._

 _They can be your motivation, to an extent._

 _They can help show you where you're going wrong._

 _But you need to change for yourself._

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

As Bozer tidied up his work area, the lab doors _swooshed_ open, revealing Beth, dressed in a soft-looking grey Henley and blue jeans, her bag over her shoulder, having obviously just clocked out. He grinned at her.

'Hey, Beth.'

'Hi, Bozer. Are you done for the day?'

He nodded.

'Just got a whole disguise kit done for May.' He smirked. 'What's up, Doc?'

He'd been dying to use that one for _ages._

Beth snorted, shaking her head with what could only be described as fond exasperation.

' _Please_ do not say that in front of Jack, he'll say that every time he sees me if you put the idea in his head…' Her expression grew a little more serious. 'And, well, if you're going home…could you give me a hand with something?'

* * *

 **MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

Mac, Jack and Riley, exhausted but relieved and proud, walked in the front door, to be greeted by delicious smells in the air.

Beth was at the kitchen counter, picking up slices of bruschetta with tongs and placing them on plates, while Bozer took a lasagne out of the oven.

Bozer grinned and Beth smiled as they filed into the living room, and then, as soon as she could put the tongs down, the young doctor rushed over and quite literally flung her arms around Mac.

' _Thank you_.'

It took him half a second to recover from the shock, and hug her back, tucking his chin over her shoulder with a soft smile.

 _I don't do this for recognition or thanks or even gratefulness. I do what I do because it's the right thing to do._

 _Still, I gotta admit, this is a really nice auxiliary benefit…_

 _Hey, I'm human._

After a very pleasant, long moment, she let go of him, a little awkwardly, cheeks a bit pink from embarrassment, and reached out to hug Jack, as Bozer, who'd strode over from the kitchen at a more leisurely pace than Beth, waggled his eyebrows and smirked, making Mac roll his eyes fondly, before the shorter man bumped his fist to the blonde's to initiate their not-so-secret handshake, then pulled him into a hug.

* * *

After the excellent dinner, thanks to Beth and Bozer, they all sat out on the deck, sipping beers and toasting marshmallows.

Riley was texting Billy, looking more than a little distracted. Her lips were pursed and she seemed a little frustrated.

(They hadn't had a chance to see each other for ages, after they'd had to cancel plans three times since Christmas, twice for Riley's job, once for Billy's.)

Jack resisted the urge to go over there and wrap the young woman he still sometimes thought of as his little girl (pseudo-father and maybe-one-day stepfather's prerogative) in his arms in comfort, nudging her to tell him all about it (and possibly threatening to do some damage to Billy if he was being an ass about Riley's job).

He knew she wouldn't appreciate it.

Riley liked to live her own life, and while she did share a lot of it with them, that was on her own terms.

As Riley finally gave a soft little smile at her phone, Bozer saved her abandoned marshmallow from catching fire by taking the stick himself, muttering something about lovebirds with an indulgent head-shake, and got to work putting together a s'more for the hacker, before returning to making his own.

On the other side of the fire, Mac was showing Beth his prism collection.

(Jack almost wished that was a euphemism, but it wasn't.)

(He _literally_ was showing her his prism collection.)

(At that moment, Beth had her cheek pressed to the deck, looking through a line of prisms at the fire, as Mac chattered excitedly about diffraction and refraction and angles of incidence.)

(Mac's romance game was _weird_ , just like him.)

(To be fair, it seemed to be _working_. The young woman looked fascinated and rather impressed, particularly by his dodecagonal prism and whatever math he was now scribbling on the chocolate bar wrapper.)

Jack shook his head affectionately, turning to Matty, who sat on his left, and then James MacGyver, who sat on his right.

(Their boss and their boss's boss had shown up – with beer and s'mores supplies – just as they sat down to eat.)

(Matty had strode right in as usual, but James had actually waited a moment at the door, as if to check he was welcome.)

He gestured with his beer vaguely in the direction of Mac and Beth, who were now having some kind of lively discussion full of words that Jack did not recognize.

(From the look on his face, James clearly did and was trying not to interject.)

(Jack took that as a good sign.)

(Sometimes, a father had to step back.)

(When your son was in the middle of trying to woo a woman – no matter how weirdly – was one of those times.)

'You MacGyver men never do anything the normal way, do you?'

James gave a little smile, more soft and fond than superior.

(Jack was pretty sure he took 'not normal' as a compliment.)

'No, no we don't.'

* * *

AN: Did you guys like Mac's birthday? I thought it'd be a really important benchmark/touchstone in his relationship with his dad, given that Mac stopped celebrating his birthday for fifteen years because his dad left just before his tenth. (Seriously, Mac does not do anything by halves, does he? Stop celebrating your birthday for more than half your life because your dad left just before your tenth, dramatically quit your job and move to the other side of the world with no intentions of returning in a reaction to the revelation he's secretly been your boss's boss for years…) Hopefully you think I did it justice? I hope you guys liked the mission; I've wanted to do a mission like this for ages and almost put one into _Every End is a Beginning._ I tried a bit of a different format with Mac's plan to free them from Jamal and his men; I have a sneaking suspicion that it'd be better on TV than it is in words, but hopefully you still liked it? And yes, I firmly maintain that MacGyver men do not do anything the normal way, and you gotta admit, Mac's prism collection is pretty cool (I've only seen one better one, and that is in the archives/museum of the School of Chemistry at my university)!

There will be an episode tag in _Detours_ for this ep. It should be up on Wednesday. Here's the summary:

Yenta, tag to 3.16, Supplies to Hospital. 'She's real smart, real pretty and she's got some spitfire in her. Everyone knows our boy's got a type. And she started weeks after he quit, then took it back. Hell of a coincidence, ain't it?' Jack confronts James about something that's been bothering him.

Yup, I finally wrote a serious one (I promised, remember?)!

And here's the press release for the next ep:

3.17, Black to White. A security breach at the Pentagon leads to the team working with a CIA white hat…whom Riley has a history with. Bozer demonstrates he's learned his lesson, and Billy pays Riley a surprise visit.

Thoughts on 3.04, Guts + Fuel + Hope:

Probably an unpopular opinion owing to the utter absence of Jack (and our favourite bromance), but I think I have a new favourite episode from this season! I really enjoyed it – such a _MacGyver_ mission, with Mac at his most, well, Mac. I kinda saw Vasil's betrayal coming (from when he ducked away to call his wife), but it was still a good twist, and a nice little insight into the complexities and difficulties of living in such an unstable region. (I think Mac and Riley are being a bit simplistic at the end, but it's also pretty Phoenix team, so…) I really liked how Riley, Matty and Bozer were gently calling Mac out about his behaviour towards his father and nudging him, and I think Riley was a really good choice of character to talk to Mac about rebuilding his relationship with his father, given her own experiences. (I love Jack, I love how he kept nudging Mac but always taking his side in the Season 2 finale and in Improvise, but I really liked what they did, too. Everyone who matters to Mac – including Nasha – has now had a chat with him relating to his dad, and I think that really nicely reflects the Phoenix family and his relationship with them.) The little bit at the end with Matty and Bozer about Jill was also really great, and I did like how Mac showed up to start a conversation with his dad. Hopefully it doesn't become all sunshine and roses between them (they have a lot to sort out, and James has an apology to make and lots of questions to answer) but what Mac and Riley were talking about, about having their eyes wide open, essentially, gives me hope that they won't.

Chemist moment: Liquid oxygen...sparks…high-speed car chase…oh, God, they are very brave! I had to watch videos about the dangers of liquid oxygen when I started my Honours. We have a piece of equipment in the lab called a high-vac that we use for drying the compounds we make that, if put together improperly, will lead to the condensation of liquid oxygen, with a decent chance of a very dangerous explosion resulting…they show us videos to horrify us into doing it properly (and junior students must be closely supervised when setting it up to run overnight…).


	17. Black to White

AN: Thoughts on 3.17, Dia de Muertos + Sicarios + Family, at the end of this chapter, with spoilers.

* * *

 **FANCY RESTAURANT**

 **(SO NOT THE GANG'S SCENE)**

 **(THEY'RE MORE THE TWO-FOR-ONE TACO TUESDAY TYPE)**

 **NEW YORK CITY**

* * *

'…Sweetheart, really? A college drop-out? You can do so much better…'

Jack, wearing a smart navy suit, sans tie, reached across the table to put his hand on Riley's. The hacker, wearing a very elegant cocktail dress with matching heels and jewellery, pulled it away and shot Jack a _look,_ though not before glancing at Mac, who was sitting next to her, wearing black-framed glasses, a tweed suit jacket and dark grey slacks. He was pretending to not pay attention to the whispered argument (at least, Riley was whispering; Jack was as loud as ever) going on between his 'girlfriend' and her 'dad' and instead perusing the wine list.

'Dad, _we have covered this_. Aaron dropped out of CalTech because the tech start-up he founded when he was _seventeen_ was taking off. Now he runs a multi-million dollar Silicon Valley engineering firm.' She crossed her arms stubbornly. 'Besides, I love him, and that is _all_ that matters.'

* * *

Mac, rather awkwardly, took a sip of his wine, and smiled his most wholesome smile at Jack.

'…so, sir, Talia told me that your Shelby Cobra is one of your most prized possessions-'

'And why'd you know anything about real cars, eh, pretty boy? Bet you drive one of those hybrids? Or one of them electric cars?'

'Dad! Seriously, lay off him, or I am going to tell Mom-'

'Well, yes, my everyday vehicle is a Tesla Model 3, run off solar-generated electricity, of course, but I've been restoring a classic Harley-'

'Which I bet you're gonna use as a showpiece in your living room, or something like that...'

'Well, it is _currently_ in my living room, but I don't plan for it to stay there, it's kind-of a long story, honestly…'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

As they watched the feed from Mac's camera-glasses, Jack's James-Bond-gadget watch and Riley's audio-visual-recording necklace, Bozer and Jill, seated in the war room armchairs, struggled to suppress giggles as they watched Jack constantly drag Mac.

Matty, standing in front of the big screen, let her amused little smile show too, even as she put her hands on her hips and admonished Jack when he got a little _too_ excited and into character.

'Eyes on the prize, boys.'

Said prize was the two Mafia dons having lunch, their phones on the table beneath their hands, two tables behind Mac, Jack and Riley.

As they watched, Riley got up in a huff, grabbing her purse.

'Honey, we're going.' Mac obediently got up. She rounded on Jack. 'Dad, I am talking to Mom about this. You _cannot_ behave this way towards the love of my life.'

'Sweetheart, you are way too young to be declaring this…this long-haired, too-blonde hooligan the love of your life!'

'I am twenty-eight years old, Dad! I am _not_ your little girl anymore!'

Riley and Jack were really getting into it, and as they watched, Riley made an extremely frustrated and angry noise, and reached out and slapped Jack.

Mac, shocked, reached out towards his 'girlfriend', putting a hand on her forearm.

'Talia, honey, I think you should calm down-'

She pulled her arm free from his grip and _glared_ at him, and Mac gulped, put his hands up, and took a few steps back, as restaurant staff swarmed in to try and defuse the situation.

Conveniently, he took the steps back in the direction of the Mafia dons' table, as the two men complained angrily to a very frazzled and frightened waiter.

He stumbled into the waiter, grabbing the table to steady himself, planting a tiny bug that'd allow Jill to download the contents of their phones (they'd swept for bugs before sitting down for lunch, but they were counting on the fact that they wouldn't _during_ ), before apologizing profusely to both the waiter and the two now-nearly-growling Mafia bosses, looking suitably terrified and embarrassed.

Then, he hurried away to join Jack and Riley, who'd been half-herded and half-dragged by the waitstaff to the restaurant's exit.

 _Yeah, we're definitely getting banned…_

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

On Saturday evening, Mac, Jack and Bozer climbed out of Jack's car in the Phoenix carpark, Jack scarfing down the last of one of Bozer's burgers (made with lean turkey and plenty of vegetables), since he'd been too busy driving to really eat (aside from snatching some bites while waiting for the traffic lights to change), unlike Mac and Bozer.

(They'd been at Mac and Bozer's, having a guys' night in and watching the Warriors in the play-offs.)

They'd just made their way to the entrance when Riley's car pulled up, and the hacker, wearing high-heeled boots, a stylish asymmetric skirt and a cold-shoulder top with statement earrings, stepped out.

(She'd been having a girls' night out with Jill and Beth. Clearly, since she was alone, Matty had seen no reason to call the analyst or the doctor in.)

Jack grinned and rubbed his hands together, before spreading them wide.

'Nothing like a Pentagon security breach to bring the family together on a Saturday night, eh?'

(Matty had given them a quick briefing over video-call on-route. This was time-sensitive.)

 _We do always try and find a little light in the darkness…but this is stretching it._

 _There are far better things to do on a Saturday night than chase down thousands of gigs of stolen classified intel and whoever stole them, national security implications notwithstanding._

Mac shook his head with fond exasperation, while Bozer made a _yeah…nah_ face and Riley snorted as they strode through the front door.

'Yeah, I'd rather have the margaritas and nachos, Jack.'

* * *

'…Definitely margaritas and nachos.'

Riley muttered under her breath as they filed into the war room. Inside stood Matty with a tall, ridiculously good-looking man of about thirty beside her. He was wearing fitted slacks and a dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up, top couple of buttons popped, hands in his pockets, shirt artfully half-untucked, like this outfit really wasn't his thing. He had really great bone structure, dark hair and vividly blue eyes, and had a cocky air about him. A slow smirk grew on his face as he took in Riley, all dressed up, looking her up and down for a moment too long that both she and Jack really didn't like.

'Hey, Riley.'

Mac, Jack and Bozer started a little, heads whipping comically in synch between Riley and the stranger.

They knew each other?

Riley crossed her arms, tilting her chin up a little as she made eye contact with whoever-it-was-she-had-a-history-with.

'Long time, no see, Parker.'

Mac, Jack and Bozer all glanced at one another, Mac and Bozer a little wide-eyed, Jack seemingly starting to imagine all the ways he could go about interrogating this Parker.

They _knew_ each other. In _that_ way. It was _that_ kind of history.

Matty broke the awkward silence.

'Parker, meet Jack, Bozer and Mac. Jack, Bozer, Baby Einstein, meet Parker Donaldson, CIA white-hat.'

* * *

In the war room, Riley and Parker sat on opposite sides, Riley on the couch, Parker in an armchair, both typing rapidly, as they tried to trace where the data had wound up and who'd stolen it in the first place.

They hardly spoke to one another, aside from occasional conversations full of technical lingo that neither Bozer nor Matty could understand.

(Mac and Jack were in one of the Phoenix jets, ready to go wheels-up at any moment, once Parker and Riley got some kind of physical location.)

There wasn't much tension in those conversations.

(Riley wasn't surprised. They'd always been good partners in this sense.)

(Being partners in the _other_ sense, on the other hand…they hadn't been very good at that.)

Still, there was enough in the air that Bozer would occasionally glance awkwardly between Parker and Riley, then at Matty, as he paced around the war room.

(Matty just rolled her eyes and mouthed _professionals_ at him.)

A few minutes later, Riley made a noise of triumph and looked up from her laptop.

'Got a location for the data. Server farm in North Carolina.'

Matty nodded, a small smile appearing on her face.

'Good work.' She turned to Parker. 'Location on the hacker?'

He didn't even look up from his laptop.

'No, whoever they are, they're good. Really, really good.' He seemed to be struck by an idea and looked up from his laptop and smirked at Riley. 'But we're better, aren't we? Remember that time we tracked down the Wells Fargo hacker?' They'd occasionally dabbled in white-hat work back in their mostly-black-hat days, just out of boredom and for the challenge. His smirk widened a little. 'It was _very_ memorable…'

Riley looked up from where she was sending the coordinates of the North Carolina server farm to Mac and Jack and the jet's pilot, and _glared_ at him in a way that made Bozer shudder a little at the reminder of how Riley used to glare at him from time to time, before he'd gotten that kick up the ass he'd really needed.

(It was _scary._ )

Matty, too, shot Parker a _look._

(She had, after all, just been insisting to Bozer that the two white-hats were professionals.)

Thankfully, Riley was one, at least. Her voice was all-business when she spoke.

'It might work.'

Her nails clacked on her keyboard rhythmically for a few seconds, before a window popped up on Parker's laptop, the code that she was writing growing before his eyes. Parker started typing too, and the code grew faster, the two of them working almost-seamlessly together.

The CIA white-hat grinned, a cocky tilt to it.

'Just like old times…'

Riley rolled her eyes.

Parker, caught up in coding, didn't notice.

Bozer and Matty definitely did, and Matty shot Bozer a significant look. Bozer, a touch sheepish (yeah, he'd been a bit of an ass to Riley back then…nothing like seeing your own bad behaviour mirrored to drive that point home), just nodded.

* * *

 **SERVER FARM**

 **NORTH CAROLINA**

* * *

'…all I'm saying, brother, is I don't like the way he looks at her! I got a sneaking suspicion I'm gonna have to go all Wookie on him...'

As they approached the nondescript building, Jack continued to grumble about Parker, which he'd been doing every moment of their entire trip from LA to North Carolina when they weren't busy looking through all the intel on the server farm Phoenix techs had managed to dig up.

Mac suppressed his annoyed sigh (Riley was the closest Jack had to a daughter, after all), and turned to his partner.

'Riley's an adult, she can more than look after herself.' He spread his hands reassuringly. 'And she's got Boze _and_ Matty watching her back right now.'

Jack sighed, acknowledging the truth the blonde spoke.

'Yeah, I know, son. I know.' He shrugged. 'You know how I worry…'

Mac nodded with a smile.

'Oh, I know.' He clapped Jack on the shoulder. 'It means you care.' He paused. 'Riley doesn't need you to go all Wookie on him for her. In fact, I don't think she'd be happy if you did.' Jack nodded, a fond little smile on his face. That was Riley. Stubbornly, insistently independent and keen on proving it. 'But she knows that you _would_ do it, and _that's_ what matters.'

They reached the entrance to the server farm, and Mac got to work examining the fancy, partly-electronic lock, before pulling a paperclip, a stick of gum and his Swiss Army knife from his pockets, absent-mindedly unwrapping the gum and putting it in his mouth, then folding the wrapper and slipping it between two components of the locking system and starting to unwind the paperclip.

* * *

'Uh, oh…'

Mac and Jack stared down the corridor, at the four big men in balaclavas, fifty feet away. The blonde spoke, addressing the team back at the Phoenix, glancing at the custom Phoenix USB he'd stuck into one of the server racks.

'Riley, Parker, have you worked out what rack the intel's in?'

'56 C, fourth from left, Mac.'

Mentally, the blonde searched the map of the server farm he'd memorized.

'Brother…now would be a really good time for one of them ideas…'

He blinked. The four big guys were advancing.

'Run!'

And he took off, Jack hot on his heels.

'Seriously, man, that's the best you could come up with?'

'Left here! And I'm working on it!'

* * *

Mac skidded to a halt beside the rack Riley had indicated, and shoved the USB device into it, pressing a button to start downloading the contents. Then, he ran several racks away and pulled out some wires, making some strategic cuts in the insulation, as Jack, his gun in hand, turned from where he'd been watching for the bad guys through the mess of toppled server racks Mac had left behind to glance at his partner.

He grinned childishly as he realized what his partner was probably making, and despite the situation, Mac just gave a fond little head-shake.

'Yeah, it's an electric whip.' He held one out as the older man jogged over to him, still looking gleeful. ' _Be careful_.'

* * *

 **TEN MINUTES LATER**

* * *

Jack pulled the balaclava off bad guy number four, snapping a photo for Riley and Parker, as Mac finished tying him up.

Then, they got up, Jack dusting off his hands, and strode out of the server farm, leaving the four weakly-stirring baddies behind.

Jack pulled out his phone as they headed off, dialling Matty.

'Hey, boss. You might wanna call the cops.' He stepped over the remains of a server rack. 'And a clean-up crew.'

There was a loud bang as one of the racks, destabilized by _something_ that Mac had done, fell against a wall, breaking through the drywall and a four-by-four, then landing on the floor on the other side.

Then, each and every one of the lights flickered out.

Mac rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

'Yeah…we definitely need a clean-up crew on this one, Matty.'

He could _see_ her putting her hands on her hips and looking at him in frustration and exasperation when she replied.

'What did you do this time, Blondie?'

* * *

 **PHOENIX JET**

 **ON THE TARMAC**

 **(HEY, JET FUEL IS EXPENSIVE)**

 **NORTH CAROLINA**

* * *

Mac and Jack sat in the jet's technical/analyst area (the space that Bozer called Riley's Batcave), conferencing with Riley, Parker and Mattty back at the Phoenix.

'…the intel wasn't on that server. We were tricked.'

'But what _was_ on it was a clue.'

Next to Riley's head, several lines of code appeared.

Mac's face scrunched up a little in thought. Jack just made a confused face.

'What does that mean, Ri?'

Parker chipped in, nudging Riley out of the frame.

'We have no idea, but we're going to find out.' More text appeared next to his head. 'We got this off the dark web, posted by someone who claims to be behind the Pentagon hack.'

The text scrolled as Mac and Jack read, with the older man speaking when they were done.

'Wait, so this is some kind of _Amazing Race_ for baddies, with the grand prize being all this stolen classified intel?'

Riley nodded.

'Yeah, except all the clues…' The cryptic lines of code reappeared. '…are like this.' Her nails clacked on her keyboard a few times, and then the driver's licenses of the bad guys Mac and Jack had taken out at the server farm popped up. 'These guys are opportunists, not hardcore criminals or hackers. But we've found at least twelve other teams who've entered the race, and some of them are definitely pros.'

Parker's head took over the screen again, making Riley shoot him an annoyed look.

'Thirteen, actually.'

There was a very deliberate throat-clearing behind the two white-hats, and then they both moved off to the side so Matty could take centre stage on screen.

'We need to get that intel back, and we can't let any of these thirteen teams get it. So, Jack, Blondie, congratulations. You two have just become contestants in this twisted _Amazing Race._ ' Matty gestured to Parker and Riley. 'They'll be guiding you two from here.'

Jack grinned and rubbed his hands together.

'Like a real life video game!' He made a face as he realized something, then pointed at Riley, very seriously. 'You better make sure we don't die! We ain't got lives, so no letting the Koopa-Troopas or the Goombas get us!'

Riley gave a snort, as Parker raised an eyebrow in a way that was almost derisive at Jack.

(To be fair, Jack didn't seem like the kind of guy who was into _Super Mario._ )

(He was a deadly ex-Delta Force, ex-CIA covert operative, after all.)

'Duly noted, Jack.'

* * *

 **SUBURBAN INDIANAPOLIS**

 **INDIANA**

* * *

In the middle of the night, Mac and Jack crept through backyards. They were searching every computer in every house on this block.

(Riley and Parker had tracked the next 'clue' to this location, somehow.)

Fortunately, Mac didn't need to work his B&E magic on every house.

Instead, Jack was just walking around looking like a bit of an idiot, holding his phone aloft.

(Between the three of them, Mac, Riley and Parker had come up with some on-the-fly mods to Jack's phone to allow them to search each computer remotely.)

They were also creeping quickly, because there were bad guys on their tail.

Lots and lots of bad guys.

Mac hopped down off the fence that led to the next yard, and jerked his thumb at it.

'We have a problem.'

As if to punctuate that, there was a loud bark from the next yard.

Jack sighed, as he moved his phone into a better position, as instructed by Parker.

(Rather snootily. He really didn't like that guy.)

'No chance that's one of 'em fluffy, harmless ones?'

Mac shook his head.

'Nope.' He was already rooting around the trashcan. Jack caught a nasty whiff of something fishy and sighed again internally. This meant his partner would be a little smelly for a while, and when he complained, he'd get a lecture about some chemicals he was pretty sure were called amines. Mac pulled out what looked like rotting meat offcuts and a hunk of really smelly cheese. 'So we need a distraction.' He passed them (thankfully wrapped roughly in newspaper) over to Jack, who took the bundle very reluctantly, pinching his nose. 'When I tell you to, toss that over the fence, at the far right corner.'

Mac had ditched the trash and was now raiding the gardening shed. He pulled out a long trowel, a broom and one of those things that looked like a giant fork, and started attaching them together with some duct-tape he'd found in there.

Jack, meanwhile, just held his stinky parcel as far away from himself as possible, grumbling under his breath.

If the really pretty waitress at their favourite Mexican restaurant or Mrs Harwood's daughter from down the block could see Mac now (or rather, about a minute ago, when he was rooting through trash), maybe they wouldn't be quite so keen on him.

(Not that Mac had really quite noticed. The waitress spent three months trying to catch his eye, and he didn't notice until she left her number on the receipt when it was his turn to pay. He kept recommending nutritional supplement mixtures for Mrs Harwood's daughter's sore post-workout muscles, which Jack was 100% sure was not what she was after.)

(Jack did not get why – rather occasionally – someone would mistake him and Mac for father and son.)

(No son of his would be this hopeless.)

(His boy tended to need the direct approach, especially when he was convinced that the lady in question could not possibly be interested in him or he simply wasn't interested in her. In hindsight, Jack could _not_ blame Nikki for her rather outrageous and innuendo-heavy flirting, or Allie – apparently, according to Bozer – for just telling him that she still liked him.)

(Jack loved his boy dearly. But being around him when he was really stinky, thanks to rooting through trash with far too much enthusiasm, and giving a science lecture, forgetting his audience– which was pretty _Mac_ , honestly – took some of the glamour and sheen off.)

(He maintained that his honestly nutty and really pretty creepy and out-there theory that James MacGyver had Frankenstein-ed Dr Bethany Helena Taylor into existence – grown her in a tank or something, Jack didn't know, he wasn't a scientist - as some kind of 'gift' for his son in apology for all his wrongs held some water.)

(As in, he was 99% sure it wasn't true, but when Bozer made that movie about Mac's life – which he and Riley maintained would be better as a TV show – years into the future when it was all declassified, he could totally get away with putting it in there for some added drama.)

(Case in point: months ago, when he and Mac had taken a dip in some sewage to save the Panamanian ambassador, poor Beth had had to deal with the aftermath.)

(Now, with him and Mac being him and Mac, there'd been bickering and stories as they'd sat on their beds in the infirmary after they'd been hosed down, but were still very, very stinky.)

(Her reaction to the fact that Mac had once had an antique toilet in his dining room?)

( _'I assume it was sterilized and not connected to any plumbing?'_ Then, after being reassured that yes, it had been sterilized, and was definitely not for use for its intended purpose in the dining room, _'You really managed to obtain an original Thomas Krapper prototype? From where? How?'_ )

(Her reaction to the really gross way that soldiers used to break in their leather boots, which Mac was – hopefully - joking about using to break in a new pair for Jack, since he'd just ruined the pair that Jack had just gotten broken in right?)

( _'If you do use urea to soften the leather, please use the store-bought variety, Mac.'_ )

(See?)

Mac now had a claw-lever hybrid of some kind in his hands, and was poised to climb the fence. Both of them could hear the noise of some of their fellow 'competitors' drawing ever-closer.

'Now, Jack!'

Jack happily tossed away his smelly bundle.

* * *

A couple of minutes later, the dog (big, black and vaguely Shepherd-like) was gnawing happily on his stinky treats, nearly done scarfing them down, they had the clue in hand, Jack was safely on the other side of the fence and Mac was perched on it, looking back into the yard with the dog, using that claw-lever thing to prise the metal staple that kept the end of the dog's leash firmly stuck in the ground out.

He got the staple out, and then hopped off the fence, ditching the device he'd built into the yard (the owners could just pull off the duct-tape and their garden tools would be good as new), and reached out to grab Jack's shoulder.

'Come on, let's get out of here.'

Jack made a face, pulling away.

'Brother, hate to be the one to tell you this, but…'

Mac had one of those moments that Jack called (in his head) 'buffering' moments, where some bits of his brain caught up with the rest that was racing ahead, sighed and sniffed his shirt-sleeve, before making a face.

'Ah. Right. Sorry.'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

With a satisfied smile, Matty crossed Team No. 4 out with a big red cross.

They'd just been picked up by Indianapolis Police, cowering in a backyard thanks to the owners' excellent guard dog.

* * *

'…it's clearly an allusion to Watergate, send Jack and MacGyver to D.C.'

Parker, with an easy smirk, crossed his legs and propped his feet up on the coffee table. Matty glared at him until he put them back on the floor again.

(Riley hid a smile. Matty didn't even let Mac get away with it, and despite the fact that Bozer had won her over first, she was sure Mac was the favourite.)

The hacker hit a few keys, and her laptop screen appeared on the big screen.

'Or, if you run it through a variant on a Caesar cipher, you get this.'

Parker just shook his head immediately.

'Nah, it can't be. The Watergate reference just makes sense.'

Riley crossed her arms, balancing her precious rig on her lap.

' _That's_ the reason you've got?'

Parker just shrugged in a way that was arrogant and utterly infuriating and she'd once found very attractive (shamefully – teenage Riley clearly had not had the best taste in men).

'I _was_ right about the last clue…'

Riley took a deep breath.

She couldn't kill him.

She couldn't even kick him where it really, really hurt.

She was a professional, and this was her job.

(Still, she was totally going to make a little change to her _Resident Evil 7_ mod that allowed her to turn the Molded into just about anything. Blowing up Parker Donaldson – digitally – was definitely going to the top of her to-do list after this mission.)

* * *

 **ON A MOUNTAIN**

 **(YES, REALLY)**

 **(IT'S COLD AND WOODED AND THERE IS NOTHING INTERESTING HERE)**

 **(UNLESS YOU'RE REALLY INTO TREES)**

 **COLORADO**

* * *

Thirty feet up a tree, Jack squinted and held the stick he was holding (to which his miraculously still-mostly-intact phone was taped) out further. He wiggled and waggled it around, searching for that sweet-spot.

No luck.

He hollered down at the ground, where his partner was moving tree branches around and arranging them strategically.

(Mac was better at traps. He was also terrified of heights.)

(Jack had decided to do his partner a solid and volunteer to do the tree-climbing.)

'Still got no reception, brother!'

(There was no reception here in the backwoods of the backwoods of Colorado, but that was kinda the point, apparently.)

(Apparently, there would be a few sweet-spots where they could get reception, and as soon as they couldwithin this ten mile radius, they'd get the next clue.)

(At least, that's what the last clue told them anyway.)

Mac looked up, shielding his eyes from the sun with a hand as he squinted up at Jack.

He pointed to the left.

'Try this tree!'

Jack groaned.

'This is the fifth tree already, man! Haven't you got some cool gadget you can build out of a pinecone and some sap and my aviators that can find one of them sweet-spots?'

Still, he was already climbing down the tree, and lost in the foliage, missed the blonde's extremely exasperated look.

(Not that he needed to see it to know. Jack was _very_ familiar with exasperated Mac.)

(Actually, he was very familiar with just about all the moods and faces of Angus MacGyver, even the ones he'd really rather not have ever known existed.)

(You'd think that given his fascination with locks and fondness for keeping his private life private, Mac would have remembered to lock the door of the van, but apparently Nikki was very distracting.)

(Mac claimed brain-bleach was impossible. And not impossible in the way that he could make possible.)

(Jack held out hope.)

'A, I am busy with this.' He gestured to the disused mine shaft (which was not well marked on any topographical maps; he and Jack had found it by nearly falling down it, and Mac was taking lemons and making lemonade) which he was covering with a canopy of leaves and branches to resemble the rest of the forest floor. 'And B, the last time I used your aviators for something, you attempted to give me the silent treatment the whole way home. You might have only lasted fifteen minutes, but it was _really_ disconcerting…'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

With a smile, Matty drew red Xs over Team No. 8 and Team No. 12.

They'd just been winched out of a disused mineshaft in the middle of nowhere, Colorado, by some FBI agents who'd owed her a favour.

* * *

'…No offense, Riley, but your theory simply doesn't hold water. It can't possibly be-'

With a triumphant smirk, Riley turned her laptop around to show Parker that yes, it definitely could be and definitely was.

'You were saying?'

(It was a little mean and really petty, but he deserved it and it felt _so_ good.)

She was pretty sure a muscle twitched in Parker's jaw, but he recovered, as he always did, and resumed his languid pose as he kept typing away.

Bozer stowed his phone back in his pocket, grinned and reached out and fist-bumped Riley, mouthing _awesome burn, lady!_ at her. Riley smiled back at him, only for her mood to be soured again as Parker updated Matty, who'd just walked back into the room.

'Riley and I have worked out that…'

Riley rolled her eyes and walked out of the room before she did something she might regret later when she got written up by HR.

(Though, maybe she could have gotten away with it.)

(Matty would know the truth. She always did.)

* * *

In the bathroom, Riley splashed a little water on her face (thank God for waterproof mascara – especially the Phoenix's truly incredible formulation which Mac, Jill and Beth had tweaked just two months ago – seriously, if any of the three of them wanted to be rich, they should just start a makeup brand), and groaned, bracing her hands on the sink.

She knew Parker could be arrogant and condescending and competitive.

(She'd kind of forgotten how bad he could be, though.)

He'd been like that before they were together, before she'd kicked his butt. More than once.

Back then, she'd thought that once she'd proven herself, she'd earned his respect.

Now, in hindsight, she wondered if he only stopped being like that when she paid attention to him.

(She'd certainly gotten a little obsessed with kicking his ass - and hence with him - back then, when he _was_ an ass.)

Jill slipped into the bathroom, wearing her usual work clothes, rather than the maroon bandage dress and black denim jacket from the night before, having been called in to help out while Riley was so busy with the Pentagon hack, and grinned at her, holding out a hand for a high-five.

'You were awesome! The look on his face…' Riley quirked an eyebrow at her, and Jill looked a touch sheepish and pulled out her phone. 'Bozer recorded it.'

Riley shook her head, expression full of affectionate exasperation.

Of course he had. He was _Bozer._

Her expression grew more wry.

'I have no idea what I saw in him.'

Jill reached out and patted her shoulder sympathetically.

'Everyone has at least one ex that makes you think that.' She paused, and then a mischievous smirk that Riley would not have known the shy woman who'd called her nothing but Miss Davis could make appeared on her face. 'We could make his internet history look really embarrassing and have him _accidentally_ expose it…'

Riley gave a little laugh and put her arm around the other woman.

'Let's keep that up our sleeves for now…'

* * *

 **DISNEY WORLD**

 **ORLANDO**

 **FLORIDA**

* * *

Mac and Jack grinned as they walked past the very long queue for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

There were three skinny guys in black, looking rather out of place, stuck in the line, arguing with one another.

'We should just cut the queue!'

'We're losing our lead here, man!'

'We can't call that much attention to ourselves. We've gotta wait!'

Jack spoke into his earpiece, hiding his grin behind the hot dog he'd insisted Mac buy for him (apparently, Mac owed him – instead of arguing, the blonde had just bought it for him; he figured he probably _did_ owe Jack for something or the other anyway, and what was a hot dog – even a ridiculously overpriced one – between family?).

Their tech squad hadn't managed to narrow down the location of the next clue to anywhere more specific than Disney World, but they'd tricked Team No. 7 into thinking it was in the middle of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, requiring them to stop the train in the middle of the ride and climb to the top of the mountain.

'Great work, Ri.' Parker made a loud noise of protest, and Jack rolled his eyes. 'And you too, Pete.'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Matty hung up, putting her phone back into her pocket with a little head-shake.

Never in her life had she collaborated with (or expected to collaborate with) Disney World police.

She crossed out Team No. 7 on her tablet.

* * *

 **THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH**

 **ORLANDO**

 **FLORIDA**

* * *

Mac and Jack darted behind Mickey and Minnie Mouse, who were waving to the crowd, hiding from Team No. 3.

Jack jerked his thumb at the mascots.

'We could borrow a couple of those suits? They'd made great disguises, brother…'

Mac shook his head after pursing his lips in thought, considering, for a moment.

'The mobility trade-off isn't worth it. Boze always had more trouble running from the swim team than he should have.'

With that, he darted off without an explanation, as usual.

Jack was left literally scratching his head.

(A mosquito had gotten him. That was the downside of warm, tropical weather.)

'Wait, what, man? What's this about Boze and running from the swim team?'

* * *

Mac and Jack walked up to the counter in the souvenir store, placing two pairs of mouse ears next to the cashier, who scanned them with a smile. Mac handed over some cash, and the two of them put on their mouse ears and strode out of the store.

Behind them, attempting to follow, Team No. 9 set off the anti-theft sensors at the door.

Despite their protests of innocence and utter confusion, security pulled no fewer than four pairs of mouse ears, eight key chains and a stuffed Perry the Platypus from their backpacks and pockets.

Jack reached out to bump his fist to his partner's with a grin.

(If Mac had chosen a life of crime, no-one would have been able to stop him.)

(He claimed that his skills in the area of pick-pocketing and reverse pick-pocketing came from a year-long obsession with magic tricks when he was fourteen.)

(He'd failed to impress Darlene Martin with them, but the skills he'd learned had turned out to be very useful.)

Mac smiled, and Jack gave his arm a shake in excitement.

'I haven't had this much fun in years, brother!'

 _Well, they do say that Disney World is the happiest place on Earth…_

* * *

In the middle of the Na'vi River Journey (thankfully closed for refurbishment), Mac eyed off the taller man from Team No. 11 who was balanced on the other end of the boat, holding a two-by-four in his hands like a staff menacingly.

The Phoenix agent counted in his head, waiting for the perfect moment, before jumping up with as much force as he could muster and landing hard on the boat's edge, reaching out to push at the two-by-four as he landed, causing the man to topple into the water.

Meanwhile, Jack crowed as he dumped his own opponents (two small women who were deceptively fast) into the water.

'Yippe kay yay!'

Such was the force of his enthusiasm, he almost over-balanced and fell in himself.

Mac arched an eyebrow at his partner, who just crossed his arms as he regained his balance.

'I meant to do that!'

Mac's eyebrow rose higher as he simply nodded.

'Of course you did.'

* * *

Forty minutes later, Mac and Jack, thanks to a couple of Fast Passes purchased on the company credit card, boarded Space Mountain.

(The next clue was hidden in the OS of the rollercoaster. Mac and Jack needed to get their phones within ten feet of it for a period of three minutes in order for Riley and Parker to work their magic.)

The Texan rubbed his hands together, then flung his arms up as the rollercoaster built up speed, leaning over to his partner.

'Best mission ever.'

Mac just grinned.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

As they typed, while Bozer organized a summary of all of their findings on the war room's big screen, Parker looked up at Riley, staring for a moment until she looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. Then, he spoke.

'What happened to you, anyway? I stopped seeing you around…'

(Internally, Riley sighed. She'd known this'd come up eventually.)

(They hadn't really kept in touch after they'd broken up, but she'd see his signature from time-to-time on some corner of the internet, and she knew he'd have seen hers.)

'I was in super-max.'

He actually looked surprised, for once.

'They caught you?'

'It's a long story.'

Her voice was clipped, short. She clearly didn't want to talk about it.

But Parker had never really known when to quit.

'You're one of the best, babe. How-'

 _Now_ he pulled out the compliments?

Ugh.

 _What_ had she seen in this guy?

' _Don't call me that._ '

Her voice was even more clipped, angry even, and she could tell that Bozer was listening to their every word intently, his hackles up and ready to come to her defence (not that she needed it) at any moment.

(Thanks to all his training, he could be sort-of subtle now, and hadn't turned around. She could simply see it in the way he stood and shifted occasionally, because they knew each other so well now.)

'Come on, babe, just for old times' sake?' Parker smirked, holding up his hands. 'I'm up for reliving old times, anytime…'

She looked incredulously and furiously at him.

'Seriously, _take a hint_ , Parker.'

And with that, her laptop in hand, Riley got up and stormed out.

She could do her work just as well from Jill's lab.

* * *

Bozer turned around as the door closed around Riley, doing his best to channel Matty's terrifying-ness and Jack's intimidating-Delta persona.

'Leave her alone, man.'

Parker deigned to look up at him with a snort. A derisive snort.

Bozer _really_ didn't like this guy.

He should totally tell Jack all about this so Jack would go all Wookie on him.

But Jack wasn't here right now, and even if Riley was super-tough, super-strong and super-independent and could look after herself better than he could look after himself, she _did_ need someone to watch her back right now.

And that someone was going to have to be Bozer, since Matty was talking to the CIA and Jill was coordinating two different Phoenix teams.

Parker's gaze only got more derisive as he looked Bozer up and down, taking into account the maroon jeans and the loudly-patterned purple shirt, which did _not_ scream secret agent. Or tough guy, for that matter.

'I'd ask if you were her boyfriend, but as if Riley would choose someone like you…'

Bozer crossed his arms, looking him square in the eye.

'She's definitely saying no to you, too. I'm her friend, and a good human being most of the time, so I'm warning you, you've _got_ to start taking no for an answer.' He focused on doing his best Matty-the-Hun impression. 'Or I'm gonna talk her into ruining your whole life with a few keystrokes.' He paused. 'And then put ghost pepper in your coffee, and tell her super-scary, ex-CIA pseudo-dad, and her ex-con real dad, and her badass bounty hunter boyfriend, and my really-scary-even-if-he-doesn't-look-it BFF…' He trailed off. '…you get the point.'

Parker and Bozer stared at each other for a long moment, before Parker gave a little nod. He turned his computer so that Bozer could see the screen, pulling up the chat window he used to coordinate with Riley and typing out an apology.

 **Hey, I shouldn't have done that.**

 **Come back?**

 **I won't do it again.**

It wasn't much of an apology, but Bozer decided it would do, at least for now.

* * *

Bozer, Matty, Parker and Riley stared at the map in front of them, all the places where clues had been located marked with bright red dots.

Bozer flung his hands up.

'Why all _these_ places? I mean, middle of nowhere in Colorado? Disney World?' He gave a half-shrug, mouth twisting to the side slightly. 'I mean, not exactly James Bond locales.'

Parker glanced at Bozer, then back at the map.

'Could be random.'

Riley pursed her lips.

'Nothing is ever _really_ random. There are many far easier locations. If the locations had no meaning…'

Matty picked up the thread.

'It would make sense to choose easier ones.' She turned to the two white-hats and Bozer. 'There has to be a pattern or a meaning. Find it.'

* * *

 **HEDGE MAZE**

 **(POTATO-THEMED)**

 **(YEAH, WE KNOW)**

 **(MARK WATNEY WOULD HATE IT)**

 **IDAHO**

* * *

Mac and Jack stared up at the fifteen-foot hedges, trying to ignore the really tacky potato decorations.

The mysterious hacker behind this whole twisted _Amazing Race_ had sent them a particularly long message full of instructions.

There were three teams left, including them.

Each team had been assigned an entrance to this maze. Enter from a different one, and there would be consequences.

There were three hard drives inside the maze, each with a section of the stolen intel.

All three were needed to access any of it.

And no entering the maze before 6 pm.

Jack pulled up the satellite image of the maze that HQ had sent them on his phone.

(There were no rules against that, after all.)

5:59 ticked over to 6.

He and Mac started running.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Riley stared at her laptop, incredulous, and blinked deliberately.

She wasn't seeing things.

'The intel's been put back.'

She typed for a moment as Parker's head whipped up.

'That's impossible, why would they do that? Are you sure?'

'All the bugs that the hacker exploited to get in have been patched.'

Parker had checked for himself, and was now also staring incredulously at his computer screen.

The two computer experts stared at each other and spoke in unison.

'…it's the same IP that did the original hack….'

'…it's a white-hat.'

* * *

 **POTATO-THEMED HEDGE MAZE**

 **IDAHO**

* * *

Mac ran through the maze, followed by his partner.

'Brother, you got any idea where we're going?'

Mac didn't even slow down as he took a left, followed by a near-immediate right.

'To the centre! I'm guessing that at least one of the hard drives has to be there!'

He assumed that the other two were hidden in the two small, dead-end alcoves with decorations and seating he'd seen on the satellite images.

'And you _know_ how to get to the centre? You got X-ray vision now, man?'

Jack sounded sceptical.

Mac took a right.

'I memorized the layout from the sat images.'

Jack tilted his head a little as he jogged after the blonde.

'Huh. Should have guessed that.'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…Got a location on that IP.'

A house in Boise, Idaho. Forty miles from the potato hedge maze.

Matty nodded, turning to Bozer, Riley and Parker, away from the screen. There was silence for a moment, before she put her hands on her hips.

'What are you waiting for?' She gestured at the door. 'Gonzales and his team are on standby at the airstrip on a jet. Go!'

* * *

 **MAZE**

 **40 MILES FROM BOISE**

 **IDAHO**

* * *

'Jack!'

Mac tossed the hard drive he'd found in the centre of the maze at his partner, who'd just roundhouse-kicked one of the guys from Team No. 1, causing him to drop his head, clutching his sore jaw with a hand. Jack caught the hard drive, as Mac seized a very ugly Mr Potato Head garden gnome (why anyone would make something like that, he had no idea) and tossed it at the head of the guy in sunglasses (the other half of Team No. 1) who was trying to cage him into one of the maze's corners.

He pressed his advantage as the gnome shattered, kneeing his opponent hard in the solar plexus as he stumbled, causing the man to drop to his knees, letting Mac grab him in a sleeper hold, knocking him out cleanly.

Jack hit the other guy with a classic one-two punch combination, before going in for his signature head-butt, and he dropped like a sack of potatoes too.

The partners grinned, as Mac took off for the nearest alcove, Jack following behind and talking into his earpiece.

'Team No. 1 down, Matty.'

* * *

Mac and Jack stared down the four members of Team No. 6, the last team standing, apart from them.

All four were armed, and seemed to know how to use their weapons too. Jack was holding his own gun on them, but they knew how it looked.

The team, who had one hard drive in hand, according to the update the hacker had texted them, were standing between them and the third hard drive.

The partners glanced at each other.

'Jack, you remember our last trip to Vegas?'

The older man groaned.

'Seriously, brother?'

'Best idea I've got right now. Go!'

Jack tossed Mac the hard drive they had, and the blonde took off running at full tilt. Two of Team No. 6 took off after him, and Jack grinned at the two who were left.

'Just us, then, gentlemen. So, we gonna take this one at a time and make it fair, or-'

Without stopping in his speech, he fired off a shot at the guy on the left, getting him in the shoulder. One of the two got off a shot just milliseconds after Jack's, but the former CIA agent had already dropped and rolled, bringing him into close range of the uninjured baddie. He'd pulled his knife out as he'd somersaulted, and stabbed the guy in the calf, before bringing his gun down on the back of his knee, before jumping up from his crouch to catch him hard in the chin with his head.

* * *

The two injured bad guys disarmed and satisfied the threat was neutered, Jack started running in the direction Mac had gone.

'Come on, brother, where are you...'

His prayers were answered, as some kind of flare launched about eighty feet to his right.

Jack smiled.

He had no idea how Mac had done it, but he always managed it somehow.

He took off running, pulling out his phone to check the satellite image of the maze so he didn't hit a dead end.

* * *

Jack made a noise of frustration as he hit a hedge wall. He glanced at his phone, and realized where he'd gone wrong.

On the other side, he heard grunts and thumps as Mac fought off the last of the bad guys.

(Jack had stumbled upon the fourth member of Team No. 6, out cold, having fallen hard, flat on his face, due to a cleverly-placed tripwire made from a brown leather belt that was hardly visible in the shadows and the darkness.)

He heard a gunshot, but thankfully no answering cry of pain…or immediate cessation of the thumps of flesh-on-flesh. In fact, it sounded like the bullet had struck something hard, like stone.

Jack yelled through the hedge maze, raising his weapon.

'Bratislava, son. You remember that?'

'How. Could. I. Forget?'

Each of Mac's words was punctuated by a grunt of effort. There was a loud _thunk_ and then the sound of someone hitting the ground at the same time as Mac calling out.

'Now!'

Jack fired a single bullet through the maze.

* * *

Immediately after he fired that shot, there was silence on the other side of the hedge.

Panic welled up in Jack's chest.

'Son, you alright?' Silence. 'Mac?'

Finally, after far too long (even if it'd only been seconds), Jack heard one of the sweetest sounds of all time.

'I'm fine, Jack.' Mac took a deep breath. 'Just a bit winded. That planter box was really heavy.'

Jack gave a relieved little chuckle, slumping against the maze wall.

'I keep telling you, brother, you can't skip arm day!'

* * *

 **HOUSE IN SUBURBIA**

 **(ORDINARY-LOOKING HOUSE)**

 **(AREN'T THEY ALWAYS?)**

 **BOISE**

 **IDAHO**

* * *

Gonzales' team burst into the bedroom, followed by Riley, Bozer and Parker.

The room's occupant, seated in a high-backed, black leather office chair, the back to them, swivelled it around and smiled at them.

'Hi. I've been expecting you.'

The mysterious hacker who'd broken into the Pentagon, set up a crazy, twisted _Amazing Race_ and then returned all the stolen intel and patched every bug was a small Asian girl with glasses like Jill's.

She couldn't have been older than sixteen.

Gonzales lowered his gun and pulled out his handcuffs.

'Do you know how much trouble you've caused, young lady?'

She raised an eyebrow.

'You mean drawing out fourteen groups intent on stealing classified US intel and patching the Pentagon's error-ridden security to ensure no-one could actually steal it?'

Parker piped up.

'Actually, it was thirteen groups.'

Riley shot him a _look._

Bozer, meanwhile, shrugged sheepishly.

'Girl's got a point?'

* * *

Riley watched the girl as Gonzales led her away in cuffs.

She'd put her next paycheck on her getting recruited by the CIA within the next week.

It stirred something in her. A thought of _what-if_?

But for some chance events, or some twist of fate, depending on your beliefs, that girl could have been her.

She'd have wound up more or less where she was now, without the detour to super-max.

Riley shook her head a little, clearing those thoughts from her mind.

It didn't matter.

Super-max had been awful. That whole Collective Incident was the biggest regret and worst experience of her life.

But without all of those experiences, she wouldn't be who she was today.

And she was happy with who she was today.

* * *

 **OUTSIDE THE SILLY POTATO MAZE**

 **40 MILES FROM BOISE**

 **IDAHO**

* * *

Mac and Jack, bruised and battered and exhausted, strode out of the maze, three hard drives in hand.

Jack's phone rang, and he answered the video call, revealing Matty on the screen.

He and Mac held up the hard drives triumphantly.

Matty smiled at the two of them.

'Good work, Blondie, Jack.' She paused. 'And you can throw out those drives; they're blank.'

Mac and Jack both stopped in their paces, staring incredulously at their boss. Jack rubbed his sore thigh, while Mac studied the hard drives, as if he could see what was on them just by looking at their exterior.

'Seriously, Matty?'

She put her hands on her hips.

'Would I joke about something like this, Dalton?'

Jack groaned loudly, while Mac sighed. The older man glanced at the younger and spoke.

'This is our life, man. This is our life.'

Mac shrugged.

' _Overall_ , it's a great life.'

Jack smiled, clapping him on the shoulder, while Matty looked pointedly at him.

'You could stand to learn from your partner's attitude…'

* * *

 **RILEY'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

The tired and weary hacker reached her floor, and found a surprise waiting for her.

Her boyfriend, leaning against the door. Waiting for her, not letting himself in with his key.

Her heart sank, even as she knew, deep within it, that this had been coming.

That this was the right thing, for both of them.

Billy smiled at her. There was something sad and heartfelt in it, wistful, perhaps, instead of his usual easy confidence.

'Hey, Riley. We…we should talk.'

* * *

In her living room, on her couch, with a sad smile, Riley reached out and hugged Billy tightly, in a way that was very much goodbye.

Because it was.

It was just too hard, no matter how hard they tried, with their respective jobs. They'd been so determined to make it work, but in the end, determination and love weren't enough.

Perhaps if one of them, just one of them, worked a job that let them stay in one place for more than a couple of weeks at a time, or if they could give each other more details about where they were and what they were doing and how they were doing and when they'd be back and just _how their day had been_ without committing treason or breaking Mama's cardinal rules…they could have made it work.

But they couldn't.

As much as she loved Billy, Riley couldn't leave her family for him.

And as much as he loved her, Billy couldn't leave his family for her either.

In the end, for both of them, family came first. They loved their families so, so much.

(Neither of them could fault the other for that. In fact, that'd been one of the things that'd drawn Riley to Billy in the first place, which she knew was the same for him.)

They pulled apart, and Billy smiled at her again, soft and sad and fond and wistful.

'If you ever need a bounty hunter, call me. I'll give you our family and friends discount.' Riley gave a wan little smile at that. 'And if you ever need someone else to watch your six, you know my number.'

Her smile widened a touch at that.

'Same goes for you, and your family.'

He sought out her eyes again, in a way that reminded her of that day it all began, on that plane, after it'd been cleared out.

'You're awesome, Miss Riley Davis. Make sure any new man in your life knows that and shows that he does, okay?'

Riley smiled a little wider.

'Well, I've already got three who do…'

Billy smiled too, and got up, tipping his hat at her, before slipping out the door.

Riley sighed, her smile falling away, and fell back onto the sofa, half lying down on it.

She stayed like that for a while, processing, letting her sadness and that rawness settle a little. She wiped a few tears off her cheeks that she'd deny she'd ever let fall, before grabbing her phone and adding a new message to her, Jill and Beth's group text.

 **Girls' night at mine? With comfy PJs, MCU marathon and Ben & Jerry's?**

She paused for a moment, then added another one.

They were her closest girlfriends. Practically family.

(Matty was a friend who was family, too, but she was more of an extra mom figure than a girlfriend.)

 **Billy and I broke up.**

Jill replied first.

 **:( I'm sorry, Riley.**

 **Do we need to delete his existence? Link his prints to every active homicide case?**

That brought a little smile to her face.

 **No, he didn't do anything wrong. It was mutual.**

Beth responded next.

 **I'm really sorry, Riley! I'll be there in forty minutes; I'll bring the ice-cream, and luckily, I've just made a whole casserole dish of mac'n'cheese…I'll leave off the kale. It doesn't seem like a kale sort of situation…**

Riley's smile widened a little.

* * *

AN: You have no idea how much fun I had writing Mac and Jack into all of those ridiculous situations. You also have no idea how much fun I had writing the opening of this ep! (I think that Lucas Till, George Eads and Tristin Mays would have so much fun filming a scene like that…and there'd be some even sillier meta-joke ad-libs courtesy of George Eads.) I hope you think I did a decent job with the Riley/Parker situation, and with Billy and Riley's break-up. I like Billy/Riley, I think they've got great chemistry, but at the same time, I think they have no long-term future, sadly. At some point, the incompatibility of their lives (she's a covert operative, he's a bounty hunter) is going to come to a head. I considered doing it in a really dramatic fashion (which I suspect they might be going for in the show, having set it up in 3.03, Bozer + Booze + Back to School with Jack letting the mark go and his conversations with Billy), but decided that I've already done one dramatic break-up and Riley had had enough relationship-related drama in this ep, so went for something a little simpler (and maybe more mature, if that makes sense?)

There will be an episode tag in _Detours_ for this ep, which should be up on Tuesday or Wednesday. Here's the summary:

Sisterhood, tag to 3.17, Black to White. Riley, Jill and Beth have a night in at Riley's with Ben & Jerry's, PJs, an MCU marathon…and some interesting conversations. Very interesting conversations.

And here's the press release for the next ep:

3.18, SecDef to Grandpa. SecDef calls Mac, claiming that he's his only hope. His granddaughter's been kidnapped, and the US government doesn't negotiate with terrorists. Despite Oversight's disapproval, the team sets out on an urgent rescue mission, bringing the MacGyvers into conflict.

Thoughts on 3.05, Dia de Muertos + Sicarios + Family: I think I have a new favourite episode for the season, because I'm fickle like that…Seriously, this ep, in my opinion, was made up of some really wonderful little moments, those little moments that are honestly why I love this show. The ones that spring to mind in particular are the Mac/Nasha scene (she is definitely officially my favourite canon love interest for Mac) at the start, Jack talking to Mac about his lunch with his dad (I really liked Mac's response, and I think it seems to nicely reflect what point they've gotten to – so glad it's not all sunshine and roses!), Bozer and Riley's chat about his relationship with Leanna, which I think deals quite nicely with the relationship between Bozer and Leanna, and how fast it was etc. (and as a Bozer/Riley shipper, I think this is a pretty clear sign that we're going to get eventual endgame Bozer/Riley), Mac and Jim's chats about Ellen and the alternate bickering-MacGyvers and teamwork!MacGyvers, as well as the fact that for them, it's clearly two steps forward, one step back. I also really do like what they did with Jack in this ep – I know some people weren't keen on this premise as it was mostly Mac and his dad working together, but one thing I maintain about Jack and Mac's relationship is you can show so much with so little – the little things like him breaking into Mac's house in his stupid costume at the start, the horror movie marathon to try and cheer him up, asking him about his lunch with his dad using _Star Wars_ references, his unshakeable faith in Mac (and Jim, I suppose) at the end, him trying to comfort Mac (no matter how poorly)…


	18. SecDef to Grandpa

AN: Very minor crossover with _Scorpion_ here. We also have particularly obnoxious bad guys in this ep (warning for harm to a small child). This is also the shortest ep to date; I think, however, that the next one will be particularly long to make up for it.

Thoughts on 3.06, Murdoc + MacGyver + Murdoc, at the end of this chapter, with spoilers.

* * *

 **DISUSED WINE CELLAR**

 **A BAD GUY'S CHATEAU**

 **SWITZERLAND**

* * *

'…I'm just saying, brother, ain't it a bit early to go all daddy-on-the-porch-with-a-death-ray? She just met the kid!'

Valerie had met a boy name Ralph when she was in LA for a special program at CalTech. He was, according to what she'd told Mac, also fourteen (nearly fifteen), was incredibly intelligent (he was _already_ a CalTech student) and _got_ her weird and seemed to _like_ it, and had an amazing mom, a genius stepdad who was really cool and several also-genius and also-awesome surrogate family members.

Mac had worn his someone-stole-all-my-toasters-and-insulted-my-mom, paperclips-and-duct-tape expression the entire flight to Switzerland as a result of Jack bringing it up.

The blonde, who was at the wine cellar door, working frantically on _something_ involving his Swiss Army knife and a couple of bobby pins (which weren't black, so he couldn't have borrowed from Riley…instead, they were light brassy-bronze, clearly meant for someone with light brown hair, something which Jack meant to annoy his partner about later), made an exasperated gesture.

'Is this _really_ the time, Jack?'

(He knew he was probably being a little unreasonable, but A, Valerie wasn't even fifteen, B, he really cared about her, and C, Riley was a fully grown woman of twenty-eight, and Jack _still_ went all Wookie-with-a-bowcaster-who-will-rip-your-arms-off-if-you-hurt-my-baby-girl…but this wasn't the time for this discussion.)

(He had to get this door open within the next four minutes, or he and Jack were going to be swimming with the fishes.)

(Pretty much literally.)

(The water level in the room had reached the bottom of Jack's ribs.)

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Mac (chewing on a bite of homemade Reuben sandwich), Bozer (about to take a bite of an identical sandwich), Riley (eating a third Reuben – Bozer had made an extra one for her; Riley was a terrible cook) and Beth (spearing a piece of whole-wheat macaroni coated with a tomato-based sauce with her fork) all exchanged fond, slightly teasing looks as Jill grinned at her phone, her lunch forgotten.

(She was texting Alex, who was on-route home from Argentina, where he'd been for the last week, along with the rest of the Edwards team.)

Then, just as he swallowed his mouthful of sandwich, Mac's phone rang.

It was a number he didn't recognize. He wasn't expecting any calls.

With a coil of worry rapidly developing in his stomach (thanks, Murdoc – _not_ ), Mac put down his lunch and answered, a hush falling around the table as he did so.

'MacGyver?' He recognized that voice. There was a lot more desperation in it than the last time he'd heard it, though. 'This is Secretary Vasquez.' SecDef. 'I need your help. You're my only hope.'

* * *

'…Three hours ago, SecDef's granddaughter was kidnapped in D.C.' Mac tapped the screen and a photo of a little girl wearing a Princess Anna costume appeared. 'Gabby Vasquez is three years old.' Jack cursed under his breath, as his, Riley, Bozer, Matty and Jill's expressions all grew grimmer. 'The kidnappers call themselves The Hand of Justice. They're a terror cell that popped up on the radar a few months ago and appear to be mostly home-grown.'

Jack skimmed the short briefing that'd popped up on the screen for a second, before turning to his partner, who'd reached for a paperclip as they read.

'Demands?'

Mac shook his head.

'None.' He tapped the screen again. 'All they said was she was taken as _retribution…_ ' There was a distinct note of anger in Mac's voice. '…and they sent him this link and told him to watch it in what is now twenty-one hours' time.'

It was a blank livestream page. The mood in the room grew grimmer.

The endgame did _not_ look good for little Gabby Vasquez.

Especially as everyone knew that the US government did not negotiate with terrorists.

Even SecDef was powerless.

Mac nodded again as it all sank in, before continuing.

'Law enforcement is doing everything they can, but…'

Jack walked over and squeezed the younger man's shoulder.

'He's a worried grandfather and he wants to call in the A-team.' He squeezed Mac's shoulder again. 'So Boze, Ri and Jill are gonna do their things and find us these SOBs, and we're gonna save the little damsel-in-distress and kick their butts as usual…'

'No, Dalton, you will not.' Oversight (and he was unmistakeably _Oversight_ , not James MacGyver, not Mac's dad, at that moment) popped up on the screen, looking very stern. Jack opened his mouth to protest, while Mac shot his father a very dirty look. 'This is not our job. This would be an unauthorized mission on US soil.'

In some ways, operating on US soil on authorized missions was even more dangerous for them than working overseas. They couldn't just walk away when it was all done, as Mac's pickle two Christmases ago had shown.

Mac's hands started working the paperclip he was holding even faster. Jack crossed his arms stubbornly.

'SecDef called Mac. _SecDef,_ man! We've been authorized.'

'He's compromised, and this is personal. Angus got that request from Julian Vasquez, not SecDef.'

'Then get us authorized!'

'I can't do that, Dalton.'

Jack looked like he might punch Oversight if he were actually in the room.

Mac tossed his re-shaped paperclip (it was a set of scales) on the coffee table, before looking Oversight dead in the eye.

'Unauthorized or not, I'm going. Gabby is _three years old_.' He grabbed his leather jacket from where he'd flung it over the armchair's back, and shrugged it on. 'You can court-martial me when she's safe.'

Mac walked over to the door, opened it and left the room.

Jack shot Oversight one last glare, before following his partner.

'Wait up, brother!'

Bozer did his best to stare down Oversight with his best Matty-the-Hun impression, Riley crossed her arms and Jill tilted her chin up a little and hoped that she looked just as tough as the field agents.

'What Mac said.'

'100% agreed.'

'I'm with him.'

Then, all three of them filed out of the room, leaving Matty.

James sighed and glanced down at her. Matty just raised an eyebrow at him, as if to say, _what did you expect?_

He sighed again, something frustrated (and not at the insubordinate agents, either) in the sound, Matty could tell.

(Perhaps no-one else could, except maybe Cage. Even Mac would be unlikely to be able to tell, she thought.)

One always had to pay a high price for the corner office.

Matty had disagreed with James's choices many times in their long acquaintance…and had made her opinion known, as was her way.

But this time, she understood why he'd said what he'd said.

Being Oversight put him in very difficult positions from time to time.

(That Christmas, he'd had to let the LAPD charge his own son with domestic terrorism and would have had to let them put him in jail if they hadn't managed to prove he'd been set up.)

The two of them locked eyes for a moment, an understanding passing between them.

He knew she was going to use Phoenix resources (or rather, allow the use of Phoenix resources) to help the team rescue Gabby.

And she knew that ultimately, he'd cover for her as best as he could.

Matty nodded once, then James hung up the video call, and she walked out of the room.

* * *

When she stepped out of the war room, Beth was handing Mac and Jack a medical kit.

When she saw her boss, the doctor stood up very straight and locked eyes with Matty, something fierce in her eyes, something very determined and protective.

'Neither you nor Oversight can order me to violate the Hippocratic Oath, the Declaration of Geneva or any other ethical codes associated with my profession. It's in my contract.'

(As they watched, Jack was hiding a grin rather poorly and Mac had a look on his face that was somewhere between admiring and besotted with a touch of something else that Matty did _not_ want to think about.)

Matty just nodded, a small smile on her face.

'Good work, Doc.'

* * *

 **PHOENIX JET**

 **SOMEWHERE OVER THE MID-WEST**

 **ON-ROUTE TO D.C.**

* * *

In the 'commandeered' Phoenix jet (the pilot had volunteered to help them, consequences be damned, once he'd heard what – or rather, who - their unauthorized mission was for; the Phoenix hired a certain type of person, and that type of person was not going to let rules and regulations stand in the way of saving a three year old girl's life), Jack leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his knees, and sought out his partner's gaze.

(Mac was toying with a couple of paperclips and another one of those brass-bronze bobby pins.)

'So, brother…you wanna talk about your latest disagreement with your dad?'

Mac sighed, shoving his paperclips and the bobby pin back into his pocket. He did, however, remain silent. Jack raised an eyebrow expectantly at him, and the two of them had a staring contest.

Mac blinked first, both literally and figuratively.

(Jack had had lots of practice against Matty and his times were improving.)

The blonde sighed again, then spoke, his voice clipped. He clearly didn't want to talk about this.

'I had a disagreement with _Oversight_.'

'Who happens to be your old man, son.' Jack paused. 'You're good at compartmentalizing, but you ain't a robot; way you're reacting right now tells me you can't fully separate the two.'

Mac stared at him for a moment in a way that told Jack that his partner knew he was right, but still definitely didn't want to talk about it.

(Jack had seen that look many times in relation to James MacGyver and Mac's relationship with him.)

'We need to focus, Jack. We've got a kid to save.' Mac glanced at his phone, which was propped up on the window sill, the microphone muted while on video-call mode. He turned the mike back on, and spoke. 'Bozer, Riley, Jill, any updates?'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Bozer and Riley exchanged a glance and a sigh, Bozer speaking as Riley kept typing.

'More MacGyver family drama…' He gave a wry smirk, looking inspired. 'They could give the Kardashians a run for their money!'

Riley snorted, and socked Bozer in the arm without even looking away from her laptop screen.

'Except for the fact that most of the drama has to do with highly classified stuff.' She glanced over at Bozer. 'And you really want to immortalize your BFF's complicated, angst-heavy and painful relationship with his father in film?'

(Sometimes, Bozer needed reminding about boundaries, even if his heart was in the right place.)

Bozer made a face, then rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

'Yeah…not a good bro thing to do.'

Meanwhile, Jill made a noise of triumph and looked up from her laptop screen, looking up at the big screen which showed Mac and Jack, just as Mac asked if they had an update.

(He had really good timing.)

'I've got something. A Hand of Justice safehouse in the Arlington area.' Her fingers flew over the keys. 'Sending you the address now…'

A new email popped into Riley's inbox from Matty. She opened it and gave a little smile.

When Matty the Hun set her mind to anything, she would get it done. God help anyone who stood in her way.

'Matty _reports…'_ Riley was sure, as they all were, that that should be read as _Matty has organized_ or _Matty has called in a favour to make sure that._ '…that an FBI SWAT team will be waiting for you on the tarmac when you land in Virginia. They're under your command.'

There was a knock on the door, and at Bozer's _come in!_ , the door opened to reveal Alex, wearing his customary black leather jacket and carrying two bags of what smelled like Chinese takeout (the heavenly scent of pot-stickers permeated the air), a bag that seemed to contain chips and pretzels and a cardboard cup holder with three jumbo-sized cups of coffee in it.

He set down the food and drink on the coffee table, and then reached out to squeeze Jill's hand comfortingly, the couple talking quietly for a moment.

Bozer and Riley exchanged a smile.

The Phoenix was full of really good people.

* * *

 **THE HAND OF JUSTICE SAFEHOUSE**

 **ARLINGTON**

 **VIRGINIA**

* * *

Mac pressed a button on the thingamajig he'd put together (using a megaphone 'borrowed' from the FBI team, Jack's poor unfortunate phone and the bobby pin that Jack was sure belonged to Beth). Apparently, it'd knock out any kind of electronic security system The Hand of Justice had in place.

He counted in his head for one minute, before nodding to Jack, who signalled to the leader of the FBI SWAT team, and they moved in, the heavily-armed SWAT team first, followed by Mac and Jack, the latter in a set of spare SWAT gear and with his own weapon in hand.

* * *

Mac picked up the floor lamp and swung it at the guy who was rushing at him with a giant knife, as Jack cleanly shot another terrorist through the knee, making the man drop to the floor. The lamp's head broke off, stunning the man and throwing him off-balance, and Mac quickly tested the weight and balance of the remains of the lamp, then, satisfied, pressed his advantage, using the lamp stand as a bo staff. Meanwhile, Jack kicked the shot terrorist's dropped gun underneath the TV console, then knocked the man out with the butt of his own gun, before swinging around and shooting the guy with the knife through the shoulder. A strategic and precise strike by Mac with the lamp-stand-bo-staff then knocked him unconscious, as gunshots kept ringing out.

Jack gestured to the couple of SWAT guys in the living room with them (there were three other terrorists either dead or unconscious on the floor), as Mac ducked his head into the corridor.

He pulled it back quickly, then gestured at the other three in the room.

'They've barricaded themselves in the kitchen.'

* * *

Two minutes later, the kitchen (which was thankfully large) was a chaotic mess.

Mac, clutching a tomato, punched the terrorist who was attempting to stab him in the eye socket, making sure the tomato juice got into his eyes. As the man struggled to clear it enough to see and dealt with the stinging sensation (tomato juice might not sting as badly as something citrus, but it still packed a punch…pun unintended), Mac kneed him hard in the stomach, then shoved him even harder into the kitchen counter.

'Mac!'

At the sound of Jack's voice, with so much packed into a single syllable, he immediately dropped to a crouch, as a bullet went whizzing over his head. There was another gunshot, as one of the SWAT team shot the guy who'd nearly shot Mac.

* * *

A minute later, the chaos has calmed.

There were only three terrorists left, held at gunpoint by the SWAT team and Jack.

The eldest of the three men (all three were almost-distressingly young) just smiled darkly.

'You're too late, _infidels_. She's gone.' His smile widened. 'And she will scream and burn and _hurt_ , just as all your children should-'

He was cut off as Jack launched himself at him, grabbing him by the throat with his left hand and pinning him to the wall, punching him several times with his right hand, before grabbing his gun and holding it to the man's head.

He just laughed, as Mac held out a hand, speaking calmly.

'We need him alive, Jack.'

(His partner had a temper. Sometimes, it got the better of him. Jack did wear his heart on his sleeve, felt everything so keenly, after all.)

(And Mac got it. He'd felt that anger course through him too at the terrorist's words, even if he'd managed to hold it in check.)

Slowly, Jack pulled his gun back, and then brought the butt of his gun down on the terrorist's forehead, before letting him drop to the ground like a sack of potatoes, making no attempt to ease his fall.

Then, Mac cursed internally as one of the other terrorists seized a pile of documents from the kitchen table, while the other turned on one of the stove burners, and the first tossed the papers onto the burner.

It'd been a distraction. And it'd worked.

Seconds later, both of the terrorists were down, nursing gunshot wounds in the shoulder and the knee respectively, and Mac was running over to the stove, reaching in and grabbing the burning papers, heedless of the flames.

* * *

Two minutes later, the half-burned papers were flour-covered, but otherwise undamaged, and Mac's left hand was sporting a red, throbbing patch which he ignored.

As Jack and a couple of the SWAT team hauled the surviving terrorists into separate rooms for interrogation, a couple more field-dressing their wounds, Mac photographed the pieces of paper, which mostly seemed to have Arabic text written on them, after shaking off the flour.

He sent off the photos to Jill, before dialling her number on video-call.

'Hey, Mac. I'm assuming you want me to work out what's on those papers you sent me?'

He nodded, a little smile on his face. Jill was very quick on the uptake, as always.

'Yeah, my written Arabic is really rusty. And I'm better at setting stuff on fire than reconstructing stuff that's been on fire…'

Jill chuckled, nodding, before her expression grew serious.

'I'm on it. I'll let you know as soon as I get something.'

* * *

Jack toyed with his gun as he very deliberately leaned closer to the man (the one he'd nearly killed earlier) duct-taped to the heavy wooden chair.

'We can do this the hard way, or the easy way.'

The terrorist just laughed.

'You are some kind of law enforcement. You people have rules that you cannot break. How hard can the hard way be?'

Jack just grinned darkly back at him.

'Well, you're wrong there, buddy. I'm on an…unauthorized mission. So, right now, I _ain't_ law enforcement.' Jack gestured to the room at large. 'And there's no-one else here…and no cameras or mikes…so…' He tapped the barrel of his gun on the terrorist's knee. 'Easy way or hard way?'

* * *

Mac strode through the safehouse, searching for clues, with a bag of frozen peas duct-taped to his left hand.

(He was well aware that cold water would be superior, but he didn't have time to stand with his hand under a tap. Not with Gabby still in danger.)

He ducked into one of the bedrooms, carefully inspecting the bedding, sniffing the pillow (and making a face), then tipping out the trashcan and studying the contents.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

As Mac hung up after sending some photos of financial documents and receipts he'd located in the safehouse and updating them, Bozer glanced at Riley, his brow furrowed.

'Did…did you see that? The peas?'

He said it as if he couldn't believe it.

(It wasn't the fact that there was a packet of frozen peas duct-taped to his BFF's hand that was weird – Mac had once worn a hat made out of three pineapples attached together with pineapple leaves for some kind of strange competition with his engineering buddies in his MIT days; Bozer had photographic evidence from Smitty – but the fact that he'd decided to treat an injury that wasn't, you know, life-threatening or mission-threatening, while in the middle of a really, really urgent mission.)

(And people didn't believe that love could change you completely! Bozer was firmly convinced he was looking at cold, hard evidence that it totally could.)

Riley nodded, and Bozer groaned.

'Seriously, Beth, where have you been most of my life?'

That was said with all the long-suffering drama of someone who had spent more than two-thirds of their life attending to the care and feeding of one Angus MacGyver.

(Great guy, big brain, bigger heart, but nearly no sense of self-preservation and questionable self-care skills when caught up in an idea or a mission or some kind of duty or responsibility – so, often.)

Riley raised an eyebrow and snorted, but still reached out and patted Bozer's shoulder comfortingly. He sighed, and then, dramatic moment over, sat up and started digging through the money trail.

They _had_ to find Gabby in time.

* * *

 **THE HAND OF JUSTICE SAFEHOUSE**

 **ARLINGTON**

 **VIRGINIA**

* * *

Mac held his tweezers up to eye level, studying the hot-pink thread held in them.

Gabby Vasquez had been wearing a hot-pink T-shirt when she'd been taken.

He glanced over at the pile of trash in the corner.

Taking into account level of decay, the garbage collection schedule for this area, and the quantity…that was far too much trash for just the twelve men they'd captured to generate.

They were looking at a minimum of twenty-four men in total.

* * *

Jack smiled at the terrorist, who stared back at him with hatred.

The hatred of someone who knew they'd been beaten.

'See? That wasn't so hard, was it, man?'

Jack stepped out of the room, pulled out the phone he'd 'borrowed' from the SWAT team, and called Riley.

'Hey, Ri…terrorists left with Gabby only an hour ago.'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Jill's laptop pinged as the reconstruction algorithm she'd been running on the digitally cleaned-up images of the papers Mac had sent to her finished running.

She started scrolling through the Arabic text that had been reconstructed, pursing her lips worriedly, before glancing over at Riley and Bozer, turning her laptop screen around so that they could see.

(Neither of them could read – or speak – Arabic, so it was probably kind of moot.)

'It's a script for an announcement in Arabic; the gist of it is that they are acting to achieve vengeance on infidels and the killers of their women and children…'

Bozer swallowed, then spoke, voice small and fearful, as Riley began to type with renewed fervour.

'Sounds like a script for an execution…one to make a point.'

Jill just nodded.

It confirmed their worst fears.

Mac and Jack and the FBI SWAT team _needed_ to rescue Gabby Vasquez before the time was up.

And they only had three hours left.

* * *

Forty minutes later, Riley looked up from her laptop, a muted kind of triumph that was really more relief in her eyes.

Her algorithm, which incorporated every single scrap of intel they'd found, including all of Bozer's money trail work, had gotten a hit, which she'd then verified with satellite imagery.

She pressed a couple of keys, and then a picture of a warehouse (nondescript, as always) in an industrial area on the outskirts of Norfolk, appeared on the screen.

'We found them.'

* * *

 **SWAT TEAM VAN**

 **ON-ROUTE TO THE HAND OF JUSTICE'S WAREHOUSE**

 **VIRGINIA**

* * *

In the back of the van, Jack leaned forward to speak to the driver, and immediately, they started going faster.

Meanwhile, Mac's phone chimed as Riley sent through the warehouse's schematics. He opened the file, studied them for a moment, then handed his phone off to Jack and the leader of the SWAT team, so they could plan an assault.

There was silence for a moment as the two men thought, before Jack spoke.

'It's an open area, they'll see us coming.'

The SWAT leader nodded in agreement, rather grimly.

'With their mind-set, they're not gonna use Gabby as a hostage to get out of there alive. They consider themselves martyrs. There's not going to be a stand-off. Instead…'

He didn't need to say it out loud.

These self-proclaimed bringers of 'justice' would kill her to achieve 'vengeance', before going down in a 'blaze of glory'.

Jack turned to his partner, without a trace of his usual humour and goofiness.

Even he couldn't muster up a little lightness for this darkness.

'Brother, we gotta somehow secure Gabby and/or neutralize those SOBs before we breach the warehouse. Anything shaking out of that big brain of yours?'

Mac was silent for a moment, his thinking face firmly on, before it changed to his _I-have-an-idea_ face and he reached out, seized the medical kit and started pulling out rolls of gauze bandages.

Jack gave a little smile.

Slowly, the smile morphed into a look of bemused amazement as the number of rolls of gauze bandages Mac pulled out of the med-kit (which was not gigantic or anything, and which Jack knew had to contain all the essentials, plus the extras Beth always included) kept growing.

Mac made a noise of satisfaction when he extracted the last roll, bringing the total to fifteen.

Even the SWAT team members looked amazed.

Jack raised his brows, pointing at the bandages.

'That's a lot of gauze…'

Mac picked up the first roll and started unwinding it, a little smile on his face.

'Beth is _really_ good at packing.'

He said that in the same tone that Jack had heard his fellow soldiers say things like _my girl makes the best pie south of the Mason-Dixie line_ or _she's the most beautiful woman I've ever laid my eyes on_ or _she's the best mama to our little ones._

( _Of course_ Mac would find uncanny packing skills to be an attractive trait. Especially when said packing skills provided him with materials to do his thing.)

(Jack had come to realize that this was all explained by Mac being a MacGyver man. He might only have met two of them – only two of them currently existed, anyway, unless James had another crazy secret he was keeping from Mac – but he'd learned that MacGyver men were just plain _weird_ and did _not_ do anything the normal way.)

(After all, as best as Jack could tell from a story that Mac had shared with him in the middle of the night as they flew home from Armenia, James MacGyver had developed feelings for Ellen after she'd scolded him, slapped him and corrected his chemistry.)

The SWAT team were now staring at Mac as he (obliviously) braided gauze bandages into a rope. Jack just slapped the leader on the back with a grin.

'You get used to him.'

At that moment, Mac turned to his phone (Riley was on the line, updating them with any bits of intel they scrounged up as they found it).

'Riles, is there a body shop in that industrial park?'

They heard her fingernails clacking on her keyboard for a couple of seconds, before she responded.

'Yeah, five doors down from the target warehouse.'

Mac nodded in satisfaction.

'Great.'

He returned to braiding gauze, muttering something under his breath about the average volume of a liquid nitrous oxide canister, the real gas equation and the estimated volume of the warehouse.

The SWAT team leader raised an eyebrow at Jack, who just shrugged.

'Kinda, anyway.'

* * *

 **HAND OF JUSTICE WAREHOUSE**

 **NORFOLK**

 **VIRGINIA**

* * *

Mac, with his coil of gauze rope over his shoulder and a canister of nitrous oxide on his back, wearing a strange-looking makeshift gas mask, found a secure grip on the warehouse's windowsill, twenty feet off the ground, and shot the two SWAT team members who were holding a sturdy metal pole and had helped him overcome the force of gravity a thumbs-up.

The two SWAT members jogged off to join Jack and the rest of their team, taking care to stay as hidden as possible, even though Riley had looped the terrorists' surveillance cameras.

Meanwhile, Mac prised open the window, and as silently as he could, slipped through it and onto the nearest rafter beam.

He edged his way along the beam, again as silently as possible, towards the middle of the cavernous space, where he could spot Gabby, her wrists bound with rope, gagged and sitting cross-legged on the floor, several men with guns and one man with a very large machete around her. There were other guards standing at the door to the warehouse, also heavily armed.

 _I might be terrified of heights, but little Gabby Vasquez must also be terrified right now._

 _I'd be terrified in her position, and I'm a twenty-eight year old former EOD tech and covert operative of the US government._

 _She's a pre-schooler._

 _And at the end of the day, terrorists killing a three-year-old girl in some twisted act of vengeance is much more terrifying than being twenty-five feet off the ground._

When he reached the spot directly over Gabby, Mac very carefully reached behind his back and grabbed the canister of nitrous oxide. He opened it gently, and slowly released the gas.

 _Nitrous oxide is also known as laughing gas._

 _You know, the stuff they sometimes give you at the dentist to make you all calm and light and sleepy?_

 _Handily, it's fast-acting and commonly used in combustion engines to boost power._

He watched in satisfaction as the gas took hold on the terrorists, causing them to slacken their grips on their weapons and grow visibly woozy, uncoiling the rope from his torso and tying it securely to the rafters as he did so.

Then, Mac raised his hand to his earpiece and tapped in a pre-arranged pattern, before dropping the end of the rope down.

(Several of the terrorists had clearly recognized what was going on, looking up at him as the rope dropped down, but the gas had had too much of an effect on them for them to act on it properly, thankfully. They staggered a little towards the rope, but managed little else.)

Then, as the first flash-bang grenade was tossed through a window, Mac climbed down the rope as fast as he could, letting go and dropping the last six feet (despite Beth's packing skills, there hadn't been _quite_ enough gauze), scooping up Gabby (who being smaller than the terrorists, was very, very woozy) and tucking her close to his body, then running for cover as Jack and the SWAT team breached the warehouse door.

* * *

Once he'd reached the relative safety of cover (a stack of boxes on pallets; the warehouse was short on decent cover), Mac set down Gabby as gently as he could, beginning to untie the rope around her wrists. He put the friendliest smile on his face that he could muster, and gave a little wave.

(It was awkward, but kids didn't usually care.)

'Hi, Gabby. I'm Mac, and your grandfather sent me and my friends to rescue you.' She blinked up at him, still woozy, her eyes very wide and still full of tears. There were clear tear stains down her cheeks, and he took a moment to rub her wrists gently to try and restore the circulation through them when he finished untying the rope. Then, Mac reached up and touched the gag in her mouth. 'I'm going to take this off, but I need you to be really brave and be really quiet, okay?'

Gabby nodded, and he forced himself to smile a little wider, and undid the gag and pulled it from her mouth as gently as possible.

She reached out for him as soon as he was done, burying her head in his chest, and Mac picked her up again, rubbing her back soothingly.

He tensed as he heard a set of footsteps, quite distinct from the gunshots and flash-bangs that were echoing out on the other side of the warehouse.

They weren't Jack's. They weren't the distinct sound of jack-booted SWAT commandos either.

That left only one conclusion.

Despite their best efforts, one of the terrorists had managed to follow Mac as he took Gabby as far as possible from the fight.

Keeping his steps as light as possible and holding the little girl securely, Mac hurried away, darting towards the next stack of boxes on pallets, searching through his mental picture of the warehouse.

There were no good hiding spots that he could access; getting back up to the rafters with Gabby was something too difficult and too risky to attempt.

Cover options were poor at best.

He couldn't fight off a guy with an assault rifle while adequately protecting her either; one shot would be all it took, and he knew the terrorist tracking him was more likely to go for her than him.

Mac pursed his lips.

There was a ground-floor window on the end of the warehouse opposite the front door…

He'd have to go across fifty feet of open ground to get there, and then he'd have to get it open, but if he could…

Yeah, that was his best option.

He tucked Gabby closer to himself, shielding her with his body as best as he could, and whispered into her ear.

'Keep your eyes closed as tight as you can, okay?'

She nodded into his chest, and Mac darted over to the last stack of boxes before the stretch of open ground between him and the window.

The footsteps were definitely getting closer, but were thankfully behind him, not between him and the window.

He took a deep breath.

He ran.

* * *

He was only twenty feet from the door when two gunshots rang out in rapid succession. Instinctively, Mac flinched, hunching protectively around Gabby as he kept running.

'Yippee kay yay, mother…oh, sorry, kid.'

Mac smiled, slowing as Jack appeared in his field of vision. He turned to find a very dead terrorist with his head and shoulders sticking out from behind a stack of boxes. The gunshots had died down, too, and on the other side of the warehouse, the SWAT team had started cuffing the surviving terrorists. One of the SWAT team members obligingly dragged the dead man further back behind cover when Jack gestured to Gabby, who still had her face buried in Mac's chest. In fact, she was clinging very tightly to him, one hand fisted in his shirt, one clutching the unzipped edge of his leather jacket. Mac rubbed her back again soothingly, then shifted her weight so that the two of them were more comfortable. Gabby raised her head for a moment, her eyes still screwed tightly shut, before burying her face back in the crook of Mac's neck.

'You can open your eyes now, Gabby. You're safe, there's nothing to be scared of anymore, I promise.'

Gabby _did_ open her eyes at Mac's words, and looked up for a moment, her eyes very wide, before burying her face in his shoulder again.

He felt hot tears spill out onto his shirt, and kept rubbing her back. The poor little girl had had a terrible ordeal.

Jack watched the interaction, something fond and proud in his eyes, before speaking gently, soothingly.

'It's okay, kiddo, you're in safe hands now…'

* * *

 **BETHESDA NAVAL HOSPITAL**

 **MARYLAND**

* * *

Mac got out of the SWAT van, Gabby still wrapped around him like a limpet.

He'd managed to coax her into eating some pretzels and M&Ms he'd picked out of the trail mix from the med-kit, but she'd refused to let go of him the entire trip over.

Secretary Vasquez, a younger man who bore a startling resemblance to him, and a woman who looked an awful lot like Gabby were waiting for them, and immediately, Gabby's mother rushed over, her husband in tow, followed by Gabby's grandfather.

'Mama!'

Gabby finally let go of Mac, and let herself be transferred over to her mother, who burst into tears as she held her baby to her.

Gabby's father just turned to Mac, tears in his own eyes, and held out a hand to him.

'Thank you, thank you so, so much…'

'Just doing my job.'

Gabby's grandfather (it was hard to think of him as SecDef when he was looking a little teary-eyed too) reached out to shake Mac's hand as well.

'You went above and beyond.' He smiled wryly. 'I owe you two, MacGyver.'

* * *

An hour later, Mac and Jack stood outside Gabby's hospital room, Mac's left hand lightly bandaged. On the other side of the glass, the little girl was lying in a hospital bed, sedated. The doctors said that the sedation might take her memories of the last twenty-four hours, which was probably a good thing. Her mother and father sat on either side of her bed, each holding one of her hands, her mother stroking her hair gently. Secretary Vasquez sat in a chair at the foot of her bed, lost in thought.

Jack reached out and put an arm around the younger man's shoulders.

'You did good today, son. Real good.'

His voice was a little rough with emotion.

Mac gave a little smile, and put his own arm around Jack's shoulders.

'Thanks, Jack.'

* * *

 _I am terrible with rules._

 _I've been breaking them my whole life, as my grandfather, Mr Ericson, Coach Wilson, Mission City Police and the local Boy Scout troop leaders can all tell you._

He looked into Gabby Vasquez's hospital room.

 _And when the reason to break them is this…I will always keep breaking them._

 _No matter the consequences._

* * *

 **MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

The next day, Mac walked into his house, followed by Bozer, both of them more exhausted than they should have been.

The two of them, plus Riley, Jack and Jill, had been given extra administrative duties (read: more paperwork) as punishment for their insubordination.

None of them had been court-martialled.

It'd been barely even a slap on the wrist.

Mac wasn't quite sure what to read into that.

(Well, more accurately, he did know what to read into that – he knew SecDef didn't have much authority over the Phoenix, but he very well knew who was in charge – but he didn't know what to think about it.)

His phone chimed, with a second unanswered message.

He ignored it.

Bozer yawned, and stumbled over to the fridge. He opened it and inspected the contents.

'Bro, whaddya say we just UberEats something?'

Mac nodded absent-mindedly, slumping down on the couch and grabbing a paperclip from the bowl that lived on the coffee table, making an annoyed sound as it caught on his bandage.

'Yeah, sure, Boze, whatever you want.'

His mind was definitely elsewhere, his voice flat and distracted.

Internally, Bozer sighed worriedly.

* * *

As they ate quesadillas from their favourite Mexican place on the couch (or rather, Bozer ate his quesadillas while Mac built an improbably-tall quesadilla tower on his plate, occasionally taking a nibble), Bozer sighed worriedly out-loud and texted a select handful of numbers.

Mac was so distracted he didn't even notice.

* * *

The next morning, a bleary-eyed Bozer padded out of his bedroom, still in his PJs, to find his BFF fully dressed for the day, hair damp from having had a shower, with a plate of very fancy breakfast (there were home-made waffles topped with fruit compote containing fruits Bozer knew they did not have when he went to sleep last night and a tri-fold omelette containing Swiss Brown mushrooms, which they'd also had none of as far as Bozer had known) under a heat lamp (which he hadn't known they'd owned) on the counter.

'Morning, Boze. I made you breakfast.' Mac held out a mug of coffee. 'And coffee.'

Bozer took the cup gratefully and had a sip.

'Thanks, bro.' Then, he pointed very firmly at his best friend/roomie/landlord. 'Did you eat breakfast?'

'Yeah, I had something a couple of hours ago, when I got back from my run.'

Oh, that was not a good sign at all. It was only 8 AM.

'Mac, bro, did you sleep last night?' Mac nodded, and Bozer sighed and re-phrased his question. 'Did you sleep more than five hours?'

'Uh…yeah, of course.'

Mac was a _terrible_ liar.

Bozer sighed again, then did his best to channel Matty and Beth, pointing at the blonde very firmly and sternly.

'If you keep doing this, man, I'm going to have to tattle on you to Beth. And I know you won't like that. She might insist on coming over and making sure you eat and sleep and…' Realization dawned on Bozer's face. 'Actually, you probably _would_ like that…'

Mac didn't roll his eyes exasperatedly or protest. His ears didn't even turn red.

Instead, he kept staring at his phone, probably not really listening to Bozer in the slightest.

Bozer sighed again and pulled out his own phone.

 **Hey, Riley? We might need to change our plans.**

They had the day off. They'd planned on going out to this cool new arcade, then grabbing brunch at this hot new brunch spot that one of Bozer's friends from his days at Killer Burgers, a fellow former line cook, had just opened.

Riley replied almost immediately.

 **Mac?**

Bozer typed out a response.

 **Yeah. Can you come over a little earlier?**

* * *

Mac's phone chimed again, and he picked it up, saw who the text was from, and rolled his eyes.

 **Angus, I think we should talk. Lunch at the diner at 1?**

His father had sent him three unanswered texts in the last thirty-six hours.

He supposed he should be grateful for the fact that his dad now initiated communication. It no longer felt like he was the only one trying.

But he was in no mood to talk to him.

Especially not when there'd seemed something deliberate or designed about the previous two messages.

The first one had been a photo of his mom that his dad had apparently just found. The second was a truly fascinating article from Mac's favourite engineering journal (which also happened to be his dad's favourite).

There were precisely two things the MacGyvers could talk comfortably about, without coming across landmines, like a father and son with a healthy, functional relationship.

Ellen MacGyver and science.

He tossed his phone back on the coffee table, just as the front door opened and Riley stepped inside. In the kitchen, Bozer smiled at her as he grabbed the ingredients for his super-special, top-secret-recipe hot chocolate.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Riley and Bozer, the latter carrying three mugs of hot chocolate, sat down on the couch on either side of Mac. Bozer passed him a mug of hot chocolate.

Mac sighed internally (he knew an intervention when he saw one), but took a sip of hot chocolate anyway.

(They were family. _True_ family. And they always meant well, and they were always there for him and to help him.)

'Mac, bro…you know, with that whole thing with your dad and all…maybe there's more to the story? You know how he is, with his whole obsessed-with-the-job thing, and he's Oversight, so lots of secrets, and maybe Oversight has Oversight…'

Mac took another sip of his hot chocolate and nodded.

'I know, Boze. I know.' Those were all facts he was well aware of. He knew even Oversight's hands were tied, like Matty's had been, when she couldn't just tell him that Oversight was his father. He knew, objectively, that he wouldn't be reacting like this if Oversight was someone else. 'It's just…he's my dad. The guy I looked up to, idolized and wanted to be when I was a kid.'

His voice was soft, quiet. Confessional.

(Mac wasn't sure how many people he'd admit that out-loud and explicitly to. It was easier to Bozer, since Bozer had been there when he was still around and in the aftermath of him leaving, and Riley, given her own situation with her dad.)

Riley spoke up, her voice gentle.

'You expect better of him?'

Mac nodded.

(Besides, he wasn't exactly happy that he'd looked up to a guy who'd advocate – even just for appearances' sake, for checking a box, really – _not_ rescuing a three-year-old girl from terrorists.)

(There were hills worth dying on. Things worth sacrificing everything for.)

Riley nodded, before speaking after a moment of silence.

'I don't expect my dad to ever completely change. He's always going to waste too much money gambling, and part of me is always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and him calling me to bail him out after his latest con, but…' She paused. 'I couldn't let the chance go by. Maybe he has changed enough, maybe he hasn't, but…I'd regret it forever if I let the chance for us to build a real relationship go past.'

Mac was silent in contemplation for a moment, before giving a little nod.

He'd regret it forever too, if he just gave up on rebuilding a relationship with his father.

Still, he wished it wasn't quite so complicated, so difficult, so full of landmines…

A little voice in his head that sounded like his grandfather snorted, and reminded him that _nothing worth having comes easy, bud._

Mac managed a little smile, and reached out to give Bozer a side-hug, then Riley, switching his hot chocolate from hand to hand to manage it.

'Thanks, guys.'

'Anytime, Mac.'

'We're always here for you, bro.'

There was a long, comfortable silence in the living room as the three of them finished their hot chocolate. When they were done, Bozer nudged his BFF with his elbow.

'So, me and Ri are gonna head to this cool new arcade, and then we're gonna stuff our faces at my buddy Patrick's new place. You wanna come?'

Mac considered for a moment, before shaking his head.

'No, I'll pass, Boze. You guys have fun.'

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Bozer and Riley had headed out, and Mac was alone in his house, sitting at his desk, half-heartedly rearranging his prism collection.

He turned a little to stare at one of his bookshelves, and found his eyes caught by the old copy of _The Wizard of Oz_ his dad had given him for Christmas.

He got up, picked it up, sat down on his bed, and opened it to the title page, read that inscription in his father's hand again.

 _For my Good Witch. With love, your Tinman._

He thumbed through the book.

Something caught his eye.

A small section, a couple of lines, faintly underlined in pencil.

' _You people with hearts', he said once, 'have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so, I must be very careful.'_

Mac pulled his phone out of his pocket, and stared at the three texts from his dad again.

He did have to eat.

(Mother-henning Bozer would recruit Jack to helicopter-parent, and they'd tattle to Beth – who would probably notice if he didn't eat properly for several days anyway – and he really wanted to stay on her good side.)

(Besides, he did know that not eating properly for days on end was really bad for you.)

(And he was starting to feel peckish for the first time since he'd gotten that call from SecDef.)

And he didn't feel much like cooking, and Bozer was out…and his grandfather always said (as did every guide to relationships ever written in the modern era) that communication was key…

But before he could type out a response to his dad, an affirmative to lunch, another text came through.

 **Sorry, Angus. I need a rain-check on that lunch. Something's come up. I'll contact you when I get back.**

He sighed and tossed his phone down none-too-gently on his bed.

It was that new obsession of his dad's, the one that he didn't need to know about, again.

Screen down on his bed, his phone chimed again, and Mac made a noise of extreme annoyance, and picked it up, not wanting to hear what half-cocked excuse his dad had for him this time.

But it wasn't from his dad.

It was from Beth.

 **Hey, Mac. Hope you're also enjoying your day off! I just wanted to let you know – this appliances shop near my place is closing down, and they have ridiculous markdowns. Maybe you can get a great bargain or two? I'd love to see recreations of your pancake-making toaster or slow-cooker foot spa, *hint, hint* :P**

That was followed by an address.

He smiled, soft and slow, then, after a long moment, grabbed his leather jacket from where he'd flung it over his desk chair and put it on, grabbing his wallet, keys and some paperclips, then pocketing his phone.

There was a reason why the term retail therapy existed, after all.

Nothing like a brand-new, half-price-or-less toaster to cheer you up.

* * *

AN: Any guesses as to what James is up to? And yeah, the MacGyvers have a really complicated relationship, still. I know it seems like they've gone a little backwards, but just trust me? Things will become a little clearer next week, I think! I firmly maintain that the team would go rogue to save a three year old girl from terrorists, no matter the consequences, and that Matty would cover for them as best as she could, and that James would too, even if he has to be _Oversight_ as well. I added in the stuff about the events of 2.11, Bullet + Pen, because it hit me the other day that James refused to go in there and order his own son's release and instead let him be charged with domestic terrorism. Given that he clearly does love Mac (even if he has skewed priorities and is really bad at showing it), I suspect that could not have been easy for him and must have had a reason behind it, and wanted to hint at that with his and Matty's little interaction.

In other news – I have now finished my presentation, my thesis and my oral defence, which means that I have completed my Honours year! Not all of my results are out yet, but I'm reliably assured that I will pass and graduate in a fancy (and boring) ceremony in a month! I've now got nearly three months off (at least) before I commence my PhD, so will definitely work on finishing this story for you guys ASAP.

There will be an episode tag in _Detours_ for this ep, which will be the first one that is set _before_ the events of the ep! Here's the summary:

Belonging, tag to 3.18, SecDef to Grandpa. 'His name is Ralph, and he…he's like me.' Valerie makes a new friend (or more), and Beth tries to stop Mac from going all daddy-on-the-porch-with-a-death-ray on the boy. Or, how Mac wound up in possession of some of Beth's bobby pins.

And here's the press release for the next episode:

3.19, Past to Future. James shows up on Mac's doorstep, having tracked down the man who ordered the hit on Ellen. Is this a quest for justice, or for vengeance? And how does it end with Mac, Jack and James showing up on Beth's doorstep in the middle of the night?

Thoughts on 3.06, Murdoc + MacGyver + Murdoc: Oh, God…so many things. So many feels. Poor, poor Cassian and poor, poor Nasha, honestly. Cassian just happened to be born to a pair of psychopaths, and Nasha just fell in love with the lovely young man who moved to her village, and look where they've wound up…It is always fun to see Murdoc and Mac interact, and throwing Amber into the mix made it really interesting. (Mac playing marriage counsellor to psychopaths was the kind of surreal humour that is so very _MacGyver._ ) Murdoc giving Cassian up, and exchanging his freedom for Cassian's safety was also a lovely touch – I like them giving Murdoc more depth, giving him a glimmer of humanity, and Cassian is such a sweetheart…plus it does give the Mac/Murdoc relationship a really interesting dynamic. They've got a twisted gentlemen's agreement going on…

And finally – Mac threatened to kill Murdoc! (That sounds bad…) I pretty much knew it was going to happen in this ep, but seriously, he finally reached that breaking point. It was always going to be the next logical step; Mac is only ever angry at two people – his dad and Murdoc.

I am also glad that they did not kill off Nasha, nor have Mac break up with her right away, but I am completely convinced that that is going to happen. Murdoc saying that it's dangerous to date Mac and the look on Mac's face when he hugged her sealed it…plus his whole speech about minimising the risk (to Cassian) with Murdoc. He's smart enough to know that breaking up with Nasha won't ensure her safety (there are unrelated dangers for her, and he's never going to be able to stop caring about her, and will probably always love her in a way, so she still might be used as leverage), but he also has to know that the target on her back becomes much smaller if he cuts himself out of her life, especially as time passes. However, the logical storyline to follow will be that Mac breaks up with Nasha and swears off (romantic) love for life (he would do it, because Mac has a martyr/self-sacrifice complex). Cue emotional and angsty conversations with Jack and Bozer trying to set him up with women/sign him up for online dating again…seriously, writers of _MacGyver,_ will Mac ever be allowed to be happy?


	19. Past to Future

AN: Thoughts on 3.07, Scavengers + Hard Drive + Dragonfly, at the end of this chapter, with spoilers.

* * *

 **JACK'S CAR**

 **(THEY'RE BREAKING AT LEAST THREE TRAFFIC LAWS)**

 **LA**

* * *

'…Ri, what's the nearest hospital?'

Jack spoke in the direction of his phone, which was resting in the centre console, glancing into the back seat via his rear-view mirror, where Mac was helping his father apply pressure to the wound in his abdomen. The elder MacGyver was starting to look weak and pale; the blood loss was clearly affecting him, and from Mac's worried look and continual application of pressure, the wound was not going to stop bleeding on its own.

Hence, hospital.

James MacGyver, however, had other ideas.

'Do _not_ take me to a hospital, Dalton.' He was very much _Oversight_ as he spoke. 'I have a cover to maintain.'

Jack made a frustrated noise (he got why Mac couldn't stand the man sometimes, he really did – he couldn't stand him either, sometimes).

'Fine. Phoenix, then. Ri, quickest route?'

'I'm not going to the Phoenix either. Again, cover.'

The vast majority of Phoenix employees had no idea who Oversight was. He intended to keep it that way.

Mac made a noise that was equal parts frustration and worry, gesturing with his head towards the bloody hole in his dad's abdomen.

'You need medical attention.'

'I have an extensive medical kit at my house; you can stitch me up.'

He _could_. Mac _did_ know how to do sutures; it'd been part of emergency first-aid training when he'd started working at the then-DXS, and he was pretty good at them, being good with his hands.

His dad wouldn't die and would recover, but…it was far from ideal.

His healing might be compromised or slowed.

Hell, maybe the blade hadn't missed all his organs like they thought. Neither of them were medical professionals, after all.

Mac made an executive decision.

'Jack, make a left at the next set of lights.'

Mac's father shot him a _look._ Mac looked back just as stubbornly at him.

'We were going to have to tell her eventually.' Even his dad wouldn't have a decent reply to that, Mac was sure, because it was objectively true. His mother's memory would haunt them both if they never came clean, and/or it'd all blow up in their faces one day. At this point, it was really a matter of kinetics, not thermodynamics, after all. He pulled out his phone with one bloodied hand, and pulled up a rather-frequently used phone number and dialled. 'Hi, Beth…sorry to wake you, but…we need your help.'

* * *

 **BETH'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

Mac, Jack and James, the latter supported by the former duo, made their way up to the third floor of the apartment building.

(Thankfully, her building had an elevator.)

Mac led them to the apartment labelled 3C, and knocked on the door. After a few seconds and what sounded like someone checking the peephole (the agents in them approved, and both Jack and James shot Mac a _look_ – he _really_ should have checked that time), the door opened, revealing Beth standing on the other side.

She was wearing purple plaid pyjama pants and a T-shirt that said, _I make horrible science puns, but only periodically._ Her hair was still messy from sleep, but pulled back into a ponytail and out of the way.

(Mac told the voice in his head that said she was adorable – which was true, about as objectively as such a thing could be – to shut up, as now was not the time.)

Beth pointed to her kitchen table, which was covered in plastic tablecloths and had the largest first aid kit any of them had ever seen sitting on one of the chairs.

'Put him on the kitchen table, please.' She looked up at Mac as he and Jack helped James onto the table. 'Have you got an estimated volume for the blood loss?'

'Approximately 1.5 L.'

Beth nodded, already sterilizing her hands with an alcohol solution and pulling on sterile surgical gloves. She grabbed a pair of scissors from her kit and cut open his shirt to examine the wound, addressing James after a minute.

'I'll close the wound, and you'll need a saline IV and possibly a transfusion. What's your blood type?'

'AB negative.'

Beth gave a small smile, finding light in the darkness in the way that they all did.

'Well, that gives us a lot of options; I'm B negative.' Jack was a universal donor, and Mac and his dad had the same blood type. She glanced over at Mac and gestured with her head towards James as she prepped stitching equipment. 'Mac, help him keep pressure on that while I set up.'

He did as told, and gave a wry smile.

'Do I need to send Jack out for coconuts?'

Beth, too, smiled, half-wry, half-fond.

'Not unless any of you are having a particular craving for them.' She gestured with her head towards her medical kit as she prepared a syringe, filling it with a clear liquid. 'I have saline solution.' She raised the full syringe into James' field of view. 'It's local anaesthetic. I'll give you a sedative in a moment, but I don't have the capability to do general anaesthesia here, so it will hurt more than it should.'

James just nodded as she injected it into him.

'You're doing the best you can with what you have.' He respected that greatly. 'Thank you, Doc.'

Jack, reduced to a spectator, just raised an eyebrow.

'You're really prepared, Lil' Doc.'

Beth didn't look up from preparing the sedative.

'Phoenix contingency plans.' They had several in case of breach of HQ. Most involved taking back HQ using agents' homes as bases. 'Support staff have everything we'd need to run the Phoenix for, conservatively, a week stashed at home.'

Jack grinned and pointed to her with his thumb.

'We couldn't save the world without you guys, Doc.'

 _We really, really couldn't._

* * *

An hour later, James was lying on the couch, waking up from sedation with a saline IV in his arm, the bag held up using a makeshift pole Mac had made using Beth's broom, a coat hanger, a colander, a couple of dumbbells and a lot of duct-tape.

Beth's kitchen table had been cleared of the bloody plastic covering and sterilized, and her first aid kit re-packed, although it still sat on one of the kitchen chairs. The doctor herself emerged from her room, having changed into clean clothes (a T-shirt with _gravity just brings me down_ on it and navy-blue flannel pants with white polka dots) and busied herself checking James' vitals as he shook off the last of the sedation.

'How long was I out?'

Beth removed the blood pressure cuff of the small, mobile monitor she kept at home from his arm, then picked up her stethoscope as she replied.

'An hour, give or take five minutes.'

Satisfied with his vitals, she then glanced between the three men who'd shown up at her home at 12:30 AM, one of them bleeding out, before turning to James, who was essentially fully awake now.

'You're a scientist and an inventor in the same way Mac is a think-tank engineer.' It was far more of a statement than a question. She sighed, annoyance and exasperation and an awful lot of resignation in the sound, and gestured vaguely around at the three of them, indicating the whole situation. 'How much of the backstory to this am I allowed to know?'

Mac sighed himself, shot his father a very significant look, and helped himself to the box of bobby pins (large) and the box of paperclips (only small, sadly) that Beth had put on her coffee table while they'd waited for James to wake up. Then, he caught her eye and gestured to his dad, a very wry smile on his face.

'Beth, meet Oversight.'

Her eyes grew _very_ wide.

* * *

 **53 HOURS EARLIER**

 **MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE**

 **(MACGYVER THE YOUNGER, JUST TO BE CLEAR)**

 **LA**

* * *

Mac's doorbell rang.

He got up off the couch, where he was watching YouTube videos while doing an experiment using the crate of tennis balls Bozer had purchased for some movie project four years ago that he'd found in the attic while looking for something else.

(Bozer was at Riley's for a video game night with Jill and Alex.)

Mac checked the peephole, and sighed when he saw who was on the other side, before opening the door, expression stony.

'Dad.'

'Hello, Angus.' He gestured with the hand that wasn't holding his go-bag. 'Can I come in?' Mac sighed again, and stepped aside to let his father in. The older MacGyver stepped inside, then stood there, a little uncomfortable for a moment, before he spoke, a touch hesitantly. 'I'm sorry about lunch last week.'

Mac sighed again internally.

Why did it always feel like too little, too late, with his dad?

They hadn't spoken since he'd vanished a week ago and said he'd contact Mac when he got back.

'What do you want, Dad?'

'I can't just pay you a visit?'

'On a day with no emotional significance, without any notice, at 9 PM at night with your go-bag when we haven't spoken for a week? No.'

James sighed.

(Angus had always been a little too smart for his own good.)

He gestured towards the couch.

'You'd better sit down.'

* * *

'Dr Stanislas Popovich…'

Mac looked up from the file as he finished reading. The military biochemist had been involved in _very_ shady government work in the Soviet Union, before seeing the writing on the wall, escaping and establishing a criminal empire in Europe, preying on the vulnerable, including by using them for highly unethical experiments. His father had been chasing this man for thirty-three years, practically his entire career. He'd caught him a few times, but Dr Popovich always managed to escape.

He reminded Mac a little too much of someone else for his peace of mind.

James was staring at the file very intently, something full of anger and fury, ice-cold yet burning-hot, in his eyes.

Something that Mac had only seen in his father's eyes once.

When he'd held a gun to Jonah Walsh's head.

That was also not great for Mac's peace of mind.

'He paid Walsh to kill your mom. I've been searching for him ever since I got that out of Walsh. A couple of months ago, I finally got a decent lead.'

His dad's latest obsession. The one that'd led to him dropping everything, disappearing on him, giving vague answers and honestly lame excuses.

The one that he'd claimed Mac _didn't need to know about._

He did his best to swallow that righteous anger that surged within him.

(She was _his_ mom. He _did_ deserve to know, and he _needed_ to know.)

Now wasn't the time. If they wanted to catch Dr Popovich, they needed to act now. Mac gestured to the file.

'He's in Suriname?'

His father nodded.

'In a highly secure compound in an isolated area on the edge of the Amazon.' He paused, and to his credit, looked somewhat uncomfortable, even contrite. 'I realized I couldn't get him on my own, so…'

Mac took a deep breath, tamping down that anger again. It wouldn't help bring his mother's killer to justice. He nodded.

'Let me grab my go-bag and call Jack.' His dad crossed his arms at that, and Mac just stared him down. 'Highly secure compound in an isolated area on the edge of the Amazon and an extremely dangerous target who has a history of evading you. We need a team.'

James MacGyver raised an eyebrow.

'And Jack counts as a team?'

'He's one of the best in the business and has saved my life more times than I can count. You, me and him counts as a team.'

James sighed.

'Fine. Tell him to hurry and meet us at the airstrip.'

* * *

 **THE MIDDLE OF THE JUNGLE**

 **(WHERE THERE ARE LOTS OF MOSQUITOS)**

 **(AT LEAST OUR BOYS ARE UP TO DATE ON THEIR VACCINATIONS?)**

 **SURINAME**

* * *

'…seriously, I get you guys are eccentric and all, I respect that, I mean, you do you, man, as Boze says, but why can't you go for normal father-son bonding activities every now and then? Ball games? Going to Vegas and becoming millionaires? Fishing trips?'

Mac and James, walking a little way ahead of Jack, exchanged a glance, Mac's very long-suffering, his father's _he's always like this, isn't he?_

(They had listened to Jack grumbling and complaining in the way that only Jack could for the last three hours as they hiked towards Dr Popovich's compound.)

Then, the two of them looked back at Jack, before glancing at the stream they were following.

'Well, if you _want_ to go fishing…'

'…we could do with some breakfast.'

* * *

 **DR POPOVICH'S COMPOUND**

 **THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE**

 **SURINAME**

* * *

The three of them, hidden behind a heavily-tree-covered ridge, stared down at the compound using binoculars.

There were regular guard patrols, and these guys were clearly pros. They weren't slack in the slightest. No significant weaknesses or blind-spots to exploit.

There were bars, locks and alarms on all the ground- and first-floor windows.

'Ground approach is out.'

'And we can't do a rooftop approach.'

They'd be spotted before they got onto the roof. Dr Popovich had had the jungle cleared completely for thirty feet in every direction around the house. There'd be no exploiting a nearby tree and some kind of improvised hang-gliders or flying fox.

Jack rubbed the back of his neck.

'Which leaves coming in from underground?'

The MacGyvers nodded, exchanging a glance, the younger speaking.

'There has to be a secret escape tunnel.'

Something flitted across James' face. An unpleasant memory, then a very wry smile.

'There will be. He likes those.'

Mac crawled away from the ridge, then sprung up and started looking around, then grabbed a large stick, tapped it experimentally on the ground and listened carefully to the sound it made.

'Well, we'd better find the end. It'd open up well clear of the compound…'

Jack's brow furrowed, and he held up a hand.

'Wait a minute, won't the other end be, you know, secured or booby-trapped or something?' The MacGyvers just looked at him. James had an eyebrow raised. 'Ah, right…forgot who I was talking to for a sec there…'

* * *

They emerged from the tunnel in a storage closet, and quickly left that room, finding themselves in an opulent corridor.

Keeping an eye out for guards, Jack and James both with their weapons in hand, they continued along it, coming across three bedrooms, a study, a ballroom (Why, Jack thought? Was Dr Popovich holding parties for baddies? Or was it just to add to the 'ambience' of his OTT bad guy villa?).

All of them, while furnished in a way that was overly opulent for any of their tastes, were completely empty.

Jack grumbled as they kept sneaking through the villa.

'Seriously, _this_ is why all the big-bads keep building these evil McMansions on steroids, brother! So we have to spend ages trying to even find 'em!'

Mac rolled his eyes, even as his gut gave him a very bad feeling. James finished picking the lock to another door and opened it to reveal a laboratory.

He and Mac exchanged a glance, then James stepped into the room carefully, as if expecting a trap.

(All the beakers and flasks and bottles of mostly-clear liquids and bottles and boxes with labels that he wasn't even sure were in English gave Jack the heebie-jeebies, but neither MacGyver seemed bothered by them.)

Nothing happened.

The room was empty.

Nothing was out of place for a lab set-up, except for a wooden table at the very end of the room.

The table had a chess set on it, the pieces set up in a very deliberate position that Mac and James both instantly recognized for what it was.

James spoke, taking a step forward.

'Checkmate.'

He picked up the card on the table that read _checkmate, James_ on it.

An alarm started to blare.

Moments later, they heard shouting in Dutch and the unmistakeable sound of boots on the marble floors.

Jack said the obvious.

'It's a trap!'

Mac didn't even pause as he grabbed a selection of chemicals off a shelf.

'I knew I had a bad feeling about this.'

James just sighed as he grabbed a heap of conical flasks and passed them off to his son.

 _Yeah, we probably like Star Wars too much._

 _In our defence, it's Star Wars._

* * *

Twenty minutes later, all the guards were down for the count or weakly stirring. Jack patrolled the room, pointing his gun at any one of them who dared to twitch too much, while Mac secured all of their hands with zip-ties he'd pulled from somewhere (where, Jack wasn't exactly sure – his partner had a handy knack for finding useful things just about everywhere).

Meanwhile, James was walking around the room, picking things up, muttering to himself, and generally acting like Mac when he got all obsessed and moody about something.

Mac and Jack exchanged a glance, Jack gesturing with his head towards his partner's father in a way that was really not subtle. They had a silent conversation in significant looks and gestures and raised brows for a minute.

Then, Mac sighed internally, but got up and walked over to his father.

'Dad.' The older MacGyver turned to face him. 'We should get Matty, Riley and Boze in on this.' He gestured to the room at large. 'We know he's not here. But we don't know where to go next. They have the skill-set to help us work that out.' He paused. 'We'll find him faster with their help.'

James stared at Mac for a long moment, looking rather like he knew Mac was right but didn't like the fact.

Then, he gave a single nod and pulled out his phone.

* * *

 **PHOENIX JET**

 **ISOLATED AIRSTRIP**

 **SURINAME**

* * *

Mac, Jack and James all sat around the monitors in the 'Batcave' while they waited for Riley's elimination algorithm to finish running.

None of the three occupants of the war room seemed terribly happy at the fact that they'd run off on a mission (a deeply personal mission) without telling them.

Though, Mac did get to enjoy watching his father squirm (or at least, as close as he would ever get to squirming – James MacGyver did not _squirm_ ) as Matty shot him her surely-patented Matty-the-Hun _look._

He and Jack exchanged a glance.

Jack just seemed glad that it wasn't directed mostly at him, for once.

Mac gave a little smile, despite the situation.

 _To be honest, I don't blame him._

 _Matty is as terrifying as she is short-statured._

 _Maybe even more so._

* * *

'I found him.' Riley tapped something on her keyboard, and the screen of the jet's computer split, half showing her, half showing an address. An LA address. 'As best as I can tell, he left Suriname a few days ago and came here. Seemed prearranged.'

James cursed, that cold fury returning to his eyes.

'He's taunting me.'

He got up with enough force to shake his chair slightly and headed towards the cockpit to tell the pilot they were going back to LA.

Mac and Jack just exchanged a glance full of concern.

(Mac remembered the last time he'd seen that look in his father's eyes.)

(Jack understood the frankly poor track record MacGyvers had with obsession. He also was well aware that if he'd thought obsessed Mac was bad, James was many times worse.)

(Even in the midst of obsession, _Mac_ wouldn't abandon his ten-year-old son.)

(And Jack knew how much James' obsession had hurt his partner.)

* * *

 **DR POPOVICH'S HIDEOUT**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA  
**

* * *

'…Hello, James. It has been a very long time.'

The world behind James faded out into something muted as the guard he'd been fighting dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes. The sounds of Mac and Jack fighting with Dr Popovich's other guards in the background grew insignificant as the man he'd chased on and off for thirty-three years walked into the room, right in front of him, smiling in that horrible way of his.

'Twelve years, two months, six days.'

The biochemist looked older than James remembered, his hair completely white now. He was in his sixties now, but moved with the ease and grace of a trained operative at least ten years his junior, doubtlessly in part to his highly-ethically-questionably-designed formulas.

Dr Popovich made a disapproving noise.

'So long, James. I have missed you, you know.'

James snorted.

'Yeah, I can't say the same.' They were circling each other now, probing, waiting for the right moment to strike, the way they always had. 'I was busy with higher priorities.' A flash of that cold fury, tightly leashed, appeared in his eyes. 'Though I see now that my priorities needed reorganizing.'

Dr Popovich smirked, something very cold and cruel in his eyes.

'Ah, yes, that aflatoxin derivative. Some of my best work, even if I say so myself. And your lovely wife did make such a wonderful test subject…'

That did it.

The leash on that cold fury frayed.

James found his advantage and went for it, kicking at the side of Dr Popovich's left knee, which he seemed to be favouring slightly.

Dr Popovich, meanwhile, went straight for his kidneys.

* * *

James cried out in pain as Dr Popovich pushed the tactical knife into his abdomen. He'd only managed to force the man's arm away to the side and down and get himself slightly out of the way to prevent it from being deadly.

(It was a lot, but it wasn't quite enough.)

Unnervingly in synch, Mac and Jack reacted. The blonde shoved the guard he was fighting with just enough force in just the right place to make the man lose his balance, as Jack took out another guard with a head-butt that made the guard's head rebound hard against the wall. With just a millisecond to aim, the former CIA agent then shot the guard Mac had been fighting, and Mac quickly grabbed the man's gun from his slackening hands, discharged the magazine and lobbed the gun and magazine at the back of Dr Popovich's head with great accuracy and precision and plenty of force.

It stunned the rogue biochemist for a few seconds, giving James an advantage to push.

* * *

Thirty-five minutes later, Dr Popovich was cuffed and being taken away by FBI agents that Matty had sent, to be put into an extremely secure concrete box, and Jack, Mac and James, the former two supporting the latter, Mac applying pressure to the wound in his father's abdomen, were walking away.

* * *

 **THE PRESENT**

 **BETH'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

'…I'm so sorry, for your mom, and your wife…'

As she spoke, Beth carefully topped up the mugs of warm, cinnamon-and-nutmeg-spiced milk in Mac and Jack's mugs (they were sitting at her kitchen table, Jack chowing down on a single-serve box of homemade lasagne from her freezer, Mac moving his serve of chicken casserole around in the box), before filling up James' (he was sitting in her armchair nibbling on toast with a little bit of butter, as she was in the middle of making up the couch as a bed, having tried and failed to convince him to sleep in her bed – her apartment only had the one bedroom).

(She'd already expressed her condolences for Ellen's passing months and months ago, when Mac had invited her over to help with their attempt to reproduce her apple pie recipe, but she felt that this revelation required more condolences.)

Mac looked up from where he was shaping his casserole into the Greek letter phi and managed a little smile at her.

'Thanks, Beth.'

She smiled a little smile back, putting the now-empty saucepan back on the stove, then returned to her task.

The three men watched in mild amazement and silence for a while as she produced four spare pillows (with pillowcases), five extra blankets and a sleeping bag from her apartment, which a real estate agent would describe as cosy.

'You'd all be more comfortable in clean clothes, but I'm afraid I don't have anything that'll fit any of you…'

'Nothing left behind by an ex-boyfriend or two?'

To Beth's credit, her cheeks flushed only a tiny bit at Jack's words, his waggling eyebrows and the way he was smirking at Mac (who was rolling his eyes), probably because she was mostly in doctor-mode.

'After three moves in two years?' Beth pointed at the linen closet. 'Towels are in the closet over there, and help yourselves to anything in the fridge, freezer or pantry.' She gestured to Mac, then with her head at James (who'd finished his toast and was looking very tired) and the couch. Mac put down his spoon, and helped her shift his father over to the couch. Beth tucked two blankets around him, before looking very firmly at the older man. 'I'll be up in two hours to check on you…' She narrowed her eyes at him. 'I have a sneaking suspicion that being a terrible patient is hereditary in this case, so I am warning you, _do not_ attempt to escape.' Then, she turned to Mac and Jack. 'Shower and _eat.'_ She punctuated the last word by jabbing her finger at Mac's chest and narrowing her eyes at him. She then seemed to realize something and turned back to James, expression softening back into what the team thought of as her doctor-y look, caring but professional. 'Actually, if you think you require one, I could give you sponge bath; you'd be more comfortable…' Mac made a face, and Beth seemed to sense that without having to look at him, because she turned around to face him and spoke, with a simple shrug and reassuring matter-of-factness with a touch of something lighter and teasing in her voice. 'He doesn't have anything that I haven't seen many times before.'

James shook his head decisively, making a bit of a face himself.

'I'm fine, thank you, Doc.'

(Things were complicated enough with him and Angus. They didn't need any extra weird. Even if she was a doctor and didn't find it weird, _he_ found it weird. Given the look on Angus' face, he also found it very weird.)

Mac raised his hands placatingly as Beth appeared to go through a mental checklist to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything.

'I will take a shower and eat. I promise, Beth.'

That got him a smile, and she nodded and walked over to her bedroom.

'Good night, gentlemen.' She looked over at James on the couch. 'Wake me if you feel any dizziness or light-headedness, or if the wound begins to feel hot or itchy, or if your pain worsens. Otherwise, I'll be up in two hours to check on you.'

That was said with a tone that indicated she very much expected him to be there in two hours.

Then, she closed the door.

After a minute, James turned to his son, and spoke wryly at a volume little louder than a whisper.

'You have no reason to be scared of her. Do you really think she could follow through on any of her threats?'

(Beth was, above all, a doctor. She had a near-obsession with upholding the Hippocratic Oath, the Declaration of Geneva and all the other ethical codes of her profession.)

Mac just sat down on a kitchen chair, toying with something he'd made from paperclips and bobby pins.

(To be fair, he hadn't _actually_ witnessed Beth's terrifying wrath, but he simply knew it must be terrifying. He'd seen that fierceness, that protectiveness - including protecting people from themselves - in her.)

(Most memorably the time she'd threatened to _deal with_ Oversight.)

'I have no doubt she'll revoke my infirmary paperclip privileges if I misbehave.'

James rolled his eyes.

He perfectly understood and appreciated the utility of the paperclip, but his son's frankly emotional attachment to them was somewhat baffling.

Jack grinned in a way that was nearly a smirk, walking over to Beth's kitchen.

'Ain't nothing wrong with a man wanting to stay on his woman's good side…' He turned around from where he was rummaging in Beth's freezer for another container labelled 'lasagne'. '…which reminds me, brother, she ain't actually your woman yet, 'cause you haven't gotten your act together…' His whole face lit up in realization in a way that was almost comical, and he pointed at Mac as if to say, _good one, man_. '…I get what game you're playing; you don't wanna give her any more leverage; 'cause now, you lose paperclips, once you two get it together, you won't get any if-'

Mac looked faintly nauseated and somewhat panicked and spoke a little too loudly.

(He couldn't exactly be blamed. This wasn't a topic that one wanted to talk to their father _and_ surrogate-father-figure – the Obi-Wan Kenobi to one's Luke Skywalker – about at the best of times, let alone in one's…love interest's apartment.)

'We are _not_ having this conversation!' He glanced over at Beth's bedroom door, but there was nothing to indicate that she'd heard them. Beth had an uncanny ability to sleep pretty much anywhere at any time and through quite a lot. It was probably very important for her health, considering her job. 'Jack, I'm guessing you'd rather eat first?'

Jack nodded, making a noise of triumph as he found not one, but two boxes of lasagne, carrying them over to the microwave.

Mac walked over to the linen closet and grabbed the first towel he could reach, a comfortably soft and fluffy purple one.

(It was a very organized linen closet. One shelf held large towels, another small ones along with pillowcases, a third held spare sheets and a fourth must previously have had the blankets on it.)

(They were also all in complimentary colours and seemed to have been purchased in sets. There was a blue set, a striped blue-and-brown set, a purple set, a green set and a grey set.)

He noted that the linen closet smelled more strongly of the cucumber and green tea scent of Beth's hand lotion than the rest of the apartment, throughout which the scent very, very lightly permeated.

(It was a subtle scent to begin with, the kind that never really bothered you and took a while to notice. She probably used it because it would be highly unlikely to bother her patients.)

(Mac had absolutely noticed and could probably pick it out from an entire perfume store by now.)

(He was not admitting that. To anyone. Ever.)

(He hadn't realized how appealing 2-nonenal was until he'd met her.)

(And he was probably irrationally fond of the scent by now. He found it very soothing.)

The logical conclusion was that she used laundry detergent that also had that scent.

(Mac wasn't sure you could buy that, even if you could buy some really weird stuff on the internet nowadays. She might mix the scent and add it to her laundry herself.)

He walked into the bathroom, and glanced at the products in the shower caddy.

Apparently, Beth synchronized the scents of not only her hand lotion and laundry detergent, but also her body wash, shampoo, conditioner and hand soap.

 _Well, she does like her order and organization._

 _And I'm certainly not complaining._

* * *

As they heard the water turn on, Jack swallowed his mouthful of lasagne (it was almost as good as Bozer's), and turned to James, who was drifting on the couch but was clearly still awake.

(It seemed he shared Mac's tendency towards insomnia from time to time.)

'You didn't tell her the whole story…'

James looked him right back in the eye.

'Some of it is between the three of us, Jack.'

He didn't use Dalton.

He asked him as a man, perhaps even a friend, not as his subordinate.

Jack could respect that.

* * *

 **THREE HOURS AGO**

 **DR POPOVICH'S HIDEOUT**

 **LA**

* * *

As they circled one another again, both breathing hard, both with several scrapes and bruises, weapons having been kicked or flung away, Dr Popovich smirked at James.

'You are an intelligent man, James. Did you ever wonder, with all the time you spent away from home, if your Ellen ever…how do I put this delicately? Ever sought out _companionship_ from another gentleman?'

Oh, he was not going there.

It was, of course, blatantly untrue, but it hit him in his soft underbelly and…

Dr Popovich continued, knowing he'd struck a blow.

'…Walsh was close to the both of you, and _he_ never secreted himself away in the labs after hours…'

He lost control of that fury completely, and without thinking tactically, without using his higher brain functions at all, James rushed at the man.

It was a near-fatal mistake.

* * *

James had Dr Popovich pinned to the wall with his forearm, the shorter, older man's feet off the ground, his air supply being slowly cut off.

James was also holding a gun to the rogue biochemist's head.

Mac and Jack, who'd dispatched all the guards just as he'd managed to pin the villain, watched. Mac spoke, concern and a little fear in his voice.

'Dad…what are you doing?'

James didn't even look away from Dr Popovich, his voice full of ice-cold, yet burning-hot fury. Rage.

Vengeance.

'What I've been planning to do for months. What I should have done one of the many times I've had the chance over the years.'

He pressed the muzzle of the gun a little harder into the villain's temple, his voice almost daring Mac and Jack to intervene, to try and stop him.

(He was so far gone into anger, into vengeance…in that moment, Mac felt that it was a true stranger before him, not the father he was coming to know again.)

Jack took a step back, a largely symbolic act.

'I get it, man. And I don't have a dog in this fight.'

He spoke as if the second statement were far more important that the first. Mac glanced at his partner, saw the conflicted look in his eyes, but also his conviction.

Jack's moral compass and his didn't always align.

They were always pretty close, but never perfect.

They'd come to an equilibrium, an understanding, a long time ago, and they respected what the other believed, even if they didn't always agree.

Still, he'd hoped for an ally.

'Mom wouldn't have wanted-'

'You _don't know_ what she would have wanted! You _can't_ know!' There was an awful lot of pain and guilt in those words, along with that fury. 'You were _five_ when he killed her, Angus. You can't have many memories of her, because he took the chance for you to grow up with her away from you!'

His fingers tightened on the trigger. Mac took a quick deep breath and spoke again, firmly pushing down the voice in his head that told him to just let his dad do it.

Get vengeance for his mother.

And for five-year-old him, crying on Halloween, watching the other kids trick-or-treating, struggling to understand the fact that he was now a half-orphan, and would never, ever get to hide from the world (already confusing and cruel to a five-year-old far too smart and far too strange) in his mother's vanilla-scented arms.

'It's true. I don't have many memories of her. But everything I remember, everything I've ever been told about Mom makes me sure that you killing him in cold blood, in her name, is _not_ what she would have wanted, Dad.' Mac took a deep breath, his voice softening, growing a touch more confessional. 'And…and it's not something that I want my dad to do for me, either.'

James took a deep breath.

And then, slowly, he lowered the gun, pressing on Dr Popovich's windpipe with a little more force instead, until the biochemist fell unconscious.

He released his grip, letting him fall hard to the floor, and shoved the gun back in his holster.

Then, he turned to Mac, who let out a breath he'd been holding in relief. The MacGyvers stared at one another for a moment, a silent conversation passing between them, before James gave a nod.

* * *

 **THE PRESENT DAY**

 **BETH'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

Mac, his hair damp (and slightly cucumber- and green-tea-scented), pulled a box labelled 'tomato soup' out of the microwave. He grabbed a spoon from Beth's cutlery drawer and walked over to the couch to hand it to his dad, before heading back into the kitchen to heat up a box labelled 'butter chicken'.

Mac then sat down in the armchair opposite his father, nudging Jack's abandoned Tupperware containers out of the way (Jack was in the shower) to put his own food down on the coffee table.

They ate in silence for a while, before James broke it.

'She's a good cook.'

Mac gave a little smile as he swallowed his mouthful of excellent butter chicken.

'Beth _is_ a chemist's daughter, with a knack for chemistry herself.'

James smiled wryly.

'You'd be surprised; the correlation between chemistry ability and cooking ability is not as strong as you'd think, Angus.'

They fell silent again for a while, before James broke it again, voice a touch hesitant.

'We have a conversation we never quite got to finish, son…'

* * *

 **44 HOURS EARLIER**

 **PHOENIX JET**

 **SOMEWHERE OVER THE** **CARIBBEAN**

 **ON-ROUTE TO SURINAME**

* * *

'Son-'

Mac cut his father, who'd been trying to talk to him whenever Jack was in the bathroom or in the cockpit talking to the pilot for the entire flight, off by raising his copy of _New Scientist_ pointedly.

James MacGyver refused to give up.

(It was a family trait.)

'I know you're upset at me-'

Mac put down his magazine with entirely too much force and crossed his arms.

'I'm not upset, I'm _angry._ ' James made a gesture with his right hand as if to say, _I can see that._ 'We agreed to start again. We agreed to work on building trust and building a relationship. We keep taking two steps forwards, only to have you pull something like this!'

He gestured with great frustration at his father, who sighed.

'If this is about Gabby, my hands were tied…'

Mac leaned forward, a challenge in his brow, in his posture.

'Then untie them. Work around it. Matty does it all the time.'

'It's not that simple, son.'

The younger MacGyver made a noise of frustration, slumped back into his seat and ran a hand through his hair, before looking at his father again.

'That isn't even the big problem. It's this obsession.' He gestured vaguely at the plane in general. 'Your obsession with finding who ordered the hit on Mom, which you claimed I didn't need to know about!'

His dad's gaze slid away from his, to the window.

'We clean up our own messes.'

Mac stubbornly waited for his father to look back at him before he continued.

'But family always helps you out!' He paused, took a deep breath and tried to let go of some of that anger. It really wasn't helping the situation. 'Look, Dad, I get that it's a rabbit hole.' He'd been down enough of them to know. He got the tendency from his father in the first place. 'But going down it alone is _not_ a good idea.'

James considered for a long, long moment, but before he could say anything, Jack came back into the cabin, rubbing his hands together with a grin.

'We're nearly there, fellas! The fasten seatbelt sign's coming on; we're going in for landing.'

* * *

 **THE PRESENT**

 **BETH'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

'You're turning the tables, Angus.' He gave a wry smile. 'You hate it when I get didactic on you...' Mac shot his father a _look._ James just smiled a little wider, before his face turned serious and he nodded. 'You're probably right, son.' He paused, looking down. 'I spent years and years down a rabbit hole…' He looked up at Mac. '…leaving everyone behind. I…I made some…questionable decisions, in hindsight.'

Mac held back his snort and instead just nodded, very much in agreement with that.

Then, he sought out his father's eyes and spoke, trying very hard not to sound condescending or too didactic. This was an olive branch; it should sound like one.

'Next time, let us in enough and…I or Matty or maybe Jack can pull you back or make sure that you let us keep pace.' He paused. 'My family does that for me.'

James nodded, slowly, but in a way that seemed like a promise he genuinely intended to keep.

They finished their food in a far more comfortable silence. Mac got up and put the Tupperware containers and spoons in the sink; he'd wash them in the morning.

As he walked back over to the living area, his dad gestured with his head towards Beth's bedroom door as he settled himself into a comfortable position for sleeping.

'Don't let her go without a fight, son. And do everything you can do keep her safe from your enemies.' He turned to him, with something sad and wistful and regretful and guilty in his eyes. 'Don't make my mistakes, Angus.'

Mac had no idea if his father had earned the right to say things like this to him yet.

(Things that a real, true father would tell his son.)

It made him prickle a little with annoyance.

His dad _did_ turn everything into a teaching opportunity.

But in the end, it was all true.

And this was one lesson he couldn't begrudge his dad, not after what he'd seen in the last two days, not with that bitter experience in his father's voice…

* * *

 **FOUR HOURS AGO**

 **DR POPOVICH'S HIDEOUT**

 **LA**

* * *

Dr Popovich laughed as he was forced to retreat as James came at him, his back hitting the wall.

'You are doing a dismal job of protecting your son…' Behind them, Mac gave a grunt of pain as one of the villain's guards landed a solid blow to his solar plexus. '…and you failed at protecting your wife.' He laughed again as James pinned him to the wall, making a sound that was almost a growl. That only made the biochemist speak louder, ensuring that James (or anyone else in the room) could not miss his words. 'But that should not have surprised you, James, what with all those superheroes you Americans so adore. All the danger Lois Lane and Mary-Jane Watson and Gwen Stacey and Pepper Potts were in, all the suffering inflicted upon them, all because of their men…'

Two last thumps of guards dropping to the ground and Jack's cry of triumph vaguely registered in James' mind.

Only vaguely.

His blood was roaring through his ears.

He pressed his forearm harder into Dr Popovich's throat.

He raised the gun he'd managed to retrieve to the man's forehead.

* * *

 **THE PRESENT**

 **BETH'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

 _And then, it hit me._

Sitting on the floor, leaning against the coffee table and toying with a couple of paperclips and three of Beth's bobby pins as his dad slept, Mac realized something.

He was self-aware enough to know that he had a type.

(In his opinion, everyone did.)

(He'd met Sarah and Dawn and Diane. Jack, at the very least, definitely had a type too.)

Not long after he'd learned the truth about his dad, Beth, who was very much his type, had started working at the Phoenix.

He had no doubt that she'd been hired because of her abilities, and her strength and courage and moral compass.

But there were a lot of doctors out there who fit the bill.

Why her, specifically?

Coincidences were statistically inevitable.

This did not feel like one.

He glanced over at his father, fast asleep and looking far more peaceful and _innocent_ than Mac had seen him as for more than eighteen years.

It was really kind of creepy and disturbing.

Then again, he had known that his dad and boundaries didn't really go all that well together.

(He'd steered the course of Mac's life without him knowing for at least a decade, probably longer.)

 _And they do say, never look a gift horse in the mouth._

He glanced over at Jack, snoring loudly in the armchair.

His dad had ensured that they were partnered together in Afghanistan.

But that was all he'd done.

Their connection, their friendship, their bond, that was all them. All real, and no less meaningful or special because of that meddling.

It was the same for him and Beth.

His dad had almost-certainly arranged for them to meet.

But everything else was all them.

* * *

A little while later, Beth's bedroom door opened, and the doctor stepped out, shaking her head affectionately at the snoring Jack, offering Mac a smile, and then crouching down beside the couch, next to James' head, being very careful not to touch him or to loom.

(Mac doubted she'd be very good at looming. Beth was barely 5'2'', was rather slightly built, had a sweet-looking face and didn't even look her twenty-eight years.)

'Umm…Oversight, sir? Mr MacGyver? Wake up; I need to check your stitches and take your blood pressure…'

He cracked his eyes open, a little blearily.

'You should call me Jim when we're off-duty, all things considered.'

As Beth shifted his blankets out of the way to get a look at his stitches (his shirt had gone into a plastic bag for disposal in the Phoenix's medical waste along with the plastic that'd covered her dining table), Mac's father shot him a significant look.

Mac groaned internally.

 _For obvious reasons, I have never had to deal with a parent taking an interest in my love life before._

 _I have a feeling it's just as bad as movies and television show it to be._

 _Actually, given my dad's issues with boundaries…it's probably going to be worse._

 _Still, you know, it's probably worth the trade-off…_

 _He's back in my life._

 _And he's taking an interest in it in a way that a father should._

* * *

With James drifting off comfortably again, Beth turned her attention to Mac, who was still sitting with his back against the coffee table, putting her hands on her hips.

'Have you slept in the last fifty-seven hours, Mac?'

'I got a few hours on the jet, on the way there and back.' He paused. 'I…I can't.'

She sighed, exasperated and long-suffering and concerned all at once.

'Would you like something to help you sleep?' She said it as if she already knew the answer, and just nodded when he shook his head. Her expression softened, sympathy clear. 'It's been a very tough fifty-seven hours for you, exceptionally tough, I think.' He just nodded, and her expression grew sterner. 'Just don't make a habit of this.'

He gave a little smile and nodded.

'I'll try my best not to, I promise. Sleep deprivation is _not_ fun.'

She gave a snort of laughter.

'To say the least.' Beth got up and grabbed a spare blanket, folding it in half lengthwise, before spreading it out on the floor beside the coffee table. Then, she grabbed the sleeping bag and took it out of the bag, setting it out over the blanket. 'You should lie down, even if you can't sleep.'

She set a pillow at the head of the sleeping bag, and patted it rather insistently, looking just as insistently over at him.

Obediently, Mac went and lay down in the sleeping bag.

Seemingly satisfied, Beth got up and went back into her room, before returning again a moment later holding a cushion with a very fluffy sheep cover on it.

She handed Pythagoras to him, looking far less doctor-y than she had earlier. He smiled and took the overly fluffy (in his opinion) sheep, setting it down next to him.

'Goodnight, Mac.'

'Night, Beth.'

* * *

He must have drifted off, because the next thing he knew, he was clutching Pythagoras and his dad was looking at him from the couch with a raised eyebrow.

He put down the stuffed sheep, feeling a bit like he was eight and had been caught with his hand in his dad's toolbox.

'His name's Pythagoras. He's Beth's.'

His dad's eyebrow rose higher. Still, he let the matter drop, working himself into a sitting position, silent for a moment before speaking, very seriously, in a way that seemed open, honest.

'I have a lot to work around, Angus. Including things that I can't tell you about.' He paused. 'You trust that Matilda has your back, even when she has to make the tough calls. Trust me to do the same.'

Mac swallowed, looking his dad right in the eye.

'One day, I hope to.'

His dad nodded in acceptance, even as something a little hurt flickered across his face, followed closely by guilt and regret.

'Anything I can do to accelerate the process?'

'Read me in, be upfront whenever you can.'

Matty always was. It helped in the cases when she couldn't be upfront, when she couldn't read them in.

James nodded again, in a way that seemed like a promise, before checking his phone.

He sighed, and sat up properly with a groan, flinging off his blankets, being careful not to tear his stitches.

Mac's heart sank.

'You have to go.'

His father nodded, pocketing the script for antibiotics and high-strength painkillers Beth had written for him that was sitting on the coffee table.

'I have to attend a meeting, regarding Dr Popovich.' He paused, seemingly sorting through what he could and could not tell Mac. 'It's at a…distant classified location. I need to leave now if I'm going to get there on time.' He paused again. 'That's all I can say, son.'

His father was on his feet now, making his way over to the door to put his boots back on.

It still stung Mac, but it wasn't as bad as him just upping and leaving.

'We'll get lunch when you get back?'

James smiled.

'I'll see you at the diner.'

It sounded like a promise.

Mac smiled back.

* * *

Jack woke up at 5:30 in the morning with a crick in his neck (he was getting far too old for sleeping in armchairs, even in comfy ones like Beth's) to his partner sitting on the floor with his legs in a sleeping bag, absent-mindedly drawing some kind of pattern in the wool of an exceedingly fluffy sheep-shaped cushion-cover that Jack had been teasing him about for months.

He also woke to find that James was gone.

He sat up straighter, then stretched, yawned and got up to grab a glass of water, pouring one for Mac, too.

He walked over and handed it to the blonde, who gave a nod of thanks.

'Your old man left?'

Mac nodded.

'He has a meeting regarding Dr Popovich to attend. In a distant classified location.'

His voice was matter-of-fact, mostly. Rather resigned. Still a touch hurt and angry.

Jack squeezed his shoulder and sat down on the coffee table (which wobbled a little under his weight; Mac made a note to reinforce it for Beth…somehow…sometime soon). He studied Mac's face for a moment, before speaking.

'He told you where and why he was going. Kinda.' Mac nodded. 'Two steps forward, eh, son?'

Mac nodded again, looking cautiously optimistic as he sipped his water, before replying.

'Maybe…maybe three.'

Jack smiled, squeezing his shoulder again.

'As long as you're heading forwards. My old man used to say that was all that mattered.'

Mac gave a little smile.

'I think I'd have liked him. And not just because of the ham radio.'

Jack chuckled.

'As long as you kept your hands off it. He was real territorial over that thing…'

'Eh, then we might have had a problem…'

 _They do say that step one of trying to fix your bad habits is admitting you have a problem._

 _Trust me, I know I have a problem._

 _It's the later steps that I'm having trouble with._

* * *

An hour later, as Mac mixed pancake batter in the kitchen (they'd shown up at her place in the middle of the night to ask for her help, then imposed on her hospitality and eaten her food while she'd gone above and beyond to look after them; the least he could do was make her a good breakfast), Beth opened her bedroom door, wearing a navy-blue robe with white polka dots over her pyjamas. She took in the empty couch and the fact that the bathroom door was open, and rubbed her temple with her right hand and sighed.

It was a very long-suffering, exasperated sound.

She also muttered something that sounded an awful lot like, _why are all covert operatives terrible patients?_

(Mac had a feeling that his dad was going to get a very long lecture/scolding– up to and including the dangers of sepsis and low blood volume and the statistics on compromised healing – the next time Beth got hold of him.)

(He might even get covered in _Dora the Explorer_ Band-Aids.)

(He made a mental note to make sure he was there for that.)

Then, she lowered her hand and narrowed her eyes at Mac and Jack, clearly not happy with them for letting James leave without telling her.

Jack held up his hands.

'Hey, I was fast asleep, Doc, and if you think our boy's sneaky, you should see Big Mac!'

Mac shot his partner a _look_ as he turned on the stove.

 _We're partners._

 _He's supposed to have my back, not throw me under the bus._

Jack looked back at him in a way that clearly said, _every man for himself!_

Mac shook his head with fond exasperation, while Beth tried very hard to not let her amusement show as she continued to narrow her eyes at him, and mostly succeeded.

The blonde sighed.

'He…he had go.' He paused. 'He always does.'

It was less bitter than he thought it'd come out.

Maybe that little bit of reaching, that little bit of effort, by his father was enough. Or as close to enough as he'd ever get, perhaps.

Still, there was enough in there to make Beth's expression soften as Mac ladled out batter for the first pancake. The doctor crossed the living room, joining him in the kitchen.

'I'm sorry, Mac.' She reached out and patted his forearm. 'Is there anything I can do make it better?'

He gave a little smile.

'You're either doing it or have already done it.'

That made her smile back, and she squeezed his arm gently, before turning to start a pot of coffee.

Then, coffee pot in hand, a realization hit her.

'One of my neighbours is going to find himself missing a change of clothes, isn't he?'

There was an awful lot of exasperation and long-suffering resignation and a touch of fondness in there.

Mac and Jack exchanged a glance as the blonde flipped the first pancake (in that fancy way that Jack had never quite managed to master), both chuckling.

'Yup.'

'The, uh, bad habit of, um, borrowing things without asking seems to be hereditary.' Mac grabbed a plate, put the pancake on it, and drizzled it with the maple syrup he'd found in her pantry, then seized a fork and held it and the plate out to her. 'Pancake?'

 _Pancakes, according to Bozer, make everything better._

 _He's not wrong._

* * *

AN: Given how long she's going to be stuck with the MacGyvers now, Beth is going to need a lot of pancakes. And will be doing a lot of affectionately-exasperated sighing. And will need to replenish her supply of embarrassing Band-Aids frequently. I saw so much potential for humour (mostly of the embarrass-Mac sort) in this ep, with Mac, Jack, James and Beth all in her apartment (Jack loves to embarrass Mac, and remember how James was like with Nasha in Improvise?), but wound up having to rein it in; this ep is really supposed to be serious (as serious as _MacGyver_ gets, anyway) and important to Mac and James' relationship. It was, actually, the second episode planned out (after D. ?) in this 'season'. I really hoped you guys liked it; it's probably my favourite ep that I've written in this story so far!

There will be an episode tag in _Detours_ for this ep. Here's the summary:

Spitfire, tag to 3.19, Past to Future. Beth confronts James. Threats are made and an accord is reached. 'You'd have really liked her, Ellen. Angus and I would have been in so much trouble…'

And here's the press release for the next episode:

3.20, Heart Medication to Bomb. When The Ghost returns, Mac and Charlie team up again to stop him. But is the bombmaker on a new mission, or is he wrapping up unfinished business? Meanwhile, James MacGyver has news for the team.

Thoughts on 3.07, Scavengers + Hard Drive + Dragonfly: Oh, what an episode! I really liked this one – it had pretty much all the little things in it that make the show what I love! Riley bonding with Abina was great (I loved Tristin Mays' little smiles!), as was her telling Matty she had to make it happen. Mac being so protective of the scavenger kids, the ep being partly a PSA about e-waste and the scavengers, the team debating whether to look at Dragonfly or not (with Bozer starting it mostly out of curiosity rather than thinking Matty's up to something, and he and Jack and their crazy conspiracies) but deciding to leave it be out of their love and respect and trust for Matty (I think it hammered home a good point here about Matty and her relationship with the team, in contrast to, say, James – they are willing to not watch Dragonfly because she always has their backs, because Matty tells them the truth and reads them in when she can, so she's built up capital and trust with them), everyone getting to be their kind of badass - those were also great. I also loved the tiny little details – Mac and Jack's quick handshake-high-five hybrid as the smoke cleared, Mac and Bozer running out of junk, the little thing about the popcorn button, Bozer telling Mac he sounds like his dad, Jack calling Riley Furiosa…

And the big reveal – Matty has a secret husband! I found that to be a pretty big twist, honestly. My money halfway through the ep when the Senator and Matty were exchanging veiled threats was on 'Matty has a secret son' or 'Matty is protecting Mac, again' (because everything in this show seems to ultimately have to do with Mac, which I suppose makes sense as he is the titular character), but it was a great twist and a better option, story-telling wise, I think, than my theories. I'm so glad that it wasn't a 'bad' secret; Matty's part of the family now, to a point that Thornton wasn't, and I would be so incensed if they made her evil too! I expect at some point, the show will revisit this – my money is on the team must rescue Ethan. Though I will gripe about the fact that no-one on this show seems to be allowed a happy, stable, reasonably low drama relationship (I mean, Billy/Riley seems to be the least dramatic so far, but I have a sneaking suspicion they're building towards something there…). Then again, they're TV show characters, so it shouldn't be surprising…


	20. Heart Medication to Bomb

AN: Thoughts on 3.08, Revenge + Catacombs + Le Fantome, at the end of this ep, complete with spoilers.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…I really do hope they're paying you the big bucks, Lil' Doc…'

Jack, who was lying on his stomach, since his butt was covered in small cuts (it was a long story, safe to say, the mission hadn't gone to plan and poor Beth had had to carefully remove thirty-nine glass fragments from Jack's rear), made a face as his partner (who'd been poisoned with black widow venom – the mission had gone _really_ wrong) vomited into a sick bag held by the young doctor.

(He couldn't hold it himself, as his hands were temporarily paralyzed.)

Jack's face became even more disgusted as the smell wafted over to him.

'Seriously, brother, what did you eat for breakfast? That stinks!'

Mac, over the bottle of water Beth was holding up to his mouth so he could rinse out the taste, shot Jack a _look._ He drank some of the water, swished it around a bit in his mouth, and spat it out into the sick bag, before taking another mouthful and swallowing. Then, he spoke.

'Having to spend half an hour staring closely at your backside is what warrants hazard pay here, Jack.'

Beth shook her head, a fondly exasperated smile on her face.

'I keep telling you two, I've seen far more backsides than either of you, and there is _really_ nothing traumatizing about anyone's.'

Jack pointed at his partner as if to say, _see, man?_

Mac rolled his eyes. Then, he made another retching sound and Beth held a fresh sick bag up for him.

'Diane doesn't have any complaints about my backside….'

Riley, who'd just stuck her head in to Mac and Jack's 'room' in the infirmary the moment Jack spoke and Mac threw up again, made a face.

(She'd taken out the baddie this time, as Mac and Jack had been indisposed.)

'I _did not_ want to hear that!' Mac made a particularly awful retching noise. That was followed by a particularly unpleasant smell. Riley's disgusted face grew more disgusted. 'Or that.'

Beth just shrugged as she grabbed the bottle of water again.

'I'm also quite immune to bodily fluids.'

* * *

 **SAME PLACE**

 **TWO DAYS LATER**

* * *

'…You're headed to LA Air Force Base, where thirty minutes ago, they found a bomb.'

Bozer looked very confused, as Matty briefed him, Jack, Mac and Riley in the war room.

'How the hell did anyone get a bomb onto an Air Force base? Aren't those things super-secure?'

Mac picked up a paperclip from the bowl.

'They're supposed to be, Boze.' He gestured at the screen, which showed a picture of said Air Force base. 'Which means that whoever did this…'

'Is a serious pro.' Jack crossed his arms, glancing at his partner. 'You getting the bad feeling I'm getting?'

Mac dropped a ghost-shaped paperclip on the coffee table in response, and Matty nodded.

'EOD techs on-site have determined that the explosive is cg-N.' Cubic gauche nitrogen. The new explosive that The Ghost has used in an attempt to blow up Mac, half his neighbourhood and half of downtown LA last year. 'They also found a hidden camera.' The Ghost's M.O. 'The Ghost is the prime suspect, so they called us in. Mac, Jack, you're heading over to the base. Charlie will meet you there, he's just hitched a ride on an Air Force T-38.'

* * *

 **EXPLOSIVES STORAGE FACILITY**

 **LA AIR FORCE BASE**

 **LA**

* * *

Mac sighed wearily as he examined the third cluster of explosives that were not supposed to be there.

Four clusters of cg-N, each larger than the ones that'd been inside his house. The three he'd inspected closely were connected by wireless receivers so that disarmament of one would trigger the detonation of the others, and he would bet his bottom dollar that the fourth was connected too.

The bombs were placed so that they'd inflict maximum damage by triggering the detonation of every other explosive in the facility.

(Which was a _lot_.)

(LA Air Force Base would be a crater in the ground – as would a decent portion of the surrounds – if the bombs went off.)

He'd also found five hidden cameras.

Every sign pointed to The Ghost.

'Hoo, boy…and I thought last time was bad.'

He managed a smile, and got up and greeted Charlie as the other EOD tech came up to him and they shook hands.

'Yeah, me too.'

'We gotta catch up some time when there isn't a risk of getting blown up, Mac.'

The blonde nodded in agreement.

'Yeah, it's overrated as a bonding experience.'

Charlie nodded with a dark-humoured smile, before growing serious and gesturing around them.

'How bad is it?'

'Four bombs, similar size to the one you disarmed last year. They're placed strategically to detonate all other explosives in here, and connected by wireless receivers.'

'So we gotta disconnect them before we can disarm them.'

Mac nodded.

'They're placed with no line of sight between them, too.'

'You gonna rig up another set of those light-activated wire cutters?'

Mac nodded.

'At the moment, that's the plan.'

'We should try and get these extra explosives out of here.' Mac nodded in agreement. 'Any idea if we can move them without setting off the bombs?'

'Nope, that was what I was going to get on to next…'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…Seven hours before the discovery of the bomb, there was a base-wide evac due to the discovery of an explosive device on the other side of the base. It was a sizeable, but simple C4 device hidden in a food delivery van and reasonably easy to disarm. The base went into lockdown, which was only lifted just before they found the bomb.'

Jill rattled off facts as she typed. Riley, sitting beside her, was also typing frantically, trying to trace the wireless signal from the hidden cameras.

(If this was indeed The Ghost, he'd learned from New York. The signal was being bounced all over the place, making it very hard to trace.)

Matty nodded seriously.

'Hiding one bomb with another is The Ghost's M.O. It has to be him.'

Bozer paced along the war room's edge.

'But how did he get the bomb in? Sneaking a literal _tonne_ of explosives into an evac'ed Air Force base while it's on lockdown and then assembling the device without getting caught has got to be impossible!'

Jack's voice echoed through the room, the former CIA agent's head appearing on the big screen.

'I think I got an answer for that, Boze…'

* * *

 **LA AIR FORCE BASE**

 **LA**

* * *

Jack, who was running a systematic sweep of the base with base security, looking for any signs of The Ghost, held up an explosive residue test strip from the latest place they were searching: underneath a building not too far from the explosives storage facility, which was used by EOD techs for training and the storage of their equipment.

'…he already had it in here, and I reckon he probably had it half-built, too.'

It was a very clever place to hide explosives. After all, explosive residue was to be expected, so its detection wouldn't raise any suspicions.

On his phone screen, Matty nodded.

'Which means that today wasn't his first time on base. Jill?'

'Already screening security footage from the last week, focusing on that van.'

* * *

Several of the base's EOD technicians carefully loaded a stack of C4 onto a trolley to move it out of the explosives storage facility, to a safe distance.

They'd determined that there were no pressure plates or wires or wireless receivers connecting the explosives that were meant to be there to the bombs, so it was safe to remove them.

Mac, who was watching one of The Ghost's bombs, suddenly flung out a hand, shouting.

'Stop!' The EOD techs froze just as they were about to wheel the stack of C4 away. 'Turn off the lights.'

A somewhat-confused member of base security flicked the light switches, plunging the room into darkness…and revealing tiny beams of white light being given off by each bomb, headed for the other bombs, only to be blocked by the stacks of explosives.

Charlie sucked in a breath.

' _That's_ why there are no sight lines…'

He and Mac hadn't understood why the bombmaker had done that. He had to know that they knew that you couldn't use four techs to cut the wires simultaneously anyway, due to differences in reaction times.

(After all, they were still alive.)

(They'd have been vaporized if they hadn't realized that.)

Now it made sense.

Remove the explosives, and detonation would be triggered as the light beams from one bomb hit receivers on another.

They hadn't recognized the tiny lights and receivers for what they were due to the sheer complexity of the bombs.

At least, not until Mac's big brain had finally processed every little observation, every little piece of stimulus, it'd picked up when he was studying the bombs, consciously or not.

The EOD techs backed off slowly, and they all exchanged a glance.

That'd been close.

Far too close.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…He hijacked an authorized food delivery van a month ago.'

'He then impersonated the van's original driver, who is probably dead, to the company…'

'…but told the base workers he was the new guy. He used the van to smuggle in the bombs, bit by bit.'

Jill and Bozer reeled off the facts that they'd discovered by searching old security footage and digging through the food delivery company's servers, as Riley kept chasing the wireless signal.

Matty nodded seriously.

'He wanted to give everyone on base a chance to get used to him, so he'd fade into the background.'

Bozer nodded.

'This guy is really, really smart…and really, really good at being bad.'

Jill pursed her lips grimly.

'And he must have been planning this for a very long time.'

Matty nodded again.

'Jill, what's that delivery guy's address? We need to take a look.'

An address appeared on the screen just as Matty finished speaking. Jill looked up from her laptop a second later, brow furrowing.

'That's it, but I didn't…'

Riley spoke up, joining the dots quickly.

'That's the address I traced the wireless signal to.'

Matty pulled out her phone and dialled.

'Gonzales, I need you and your team at this address ASAP.'

* * *

 **DEAD DELIVERY GUY'S APARTMENT**

 **LA**

* * *

Gonzales counted to three on his fingers silently, and then one of his men kicked in the door, and he led his team into the tiny studio apartment in a really grotty building in a pretty dodgy part of town.

It was covered in junk and there was a really unpleasant smell in the air, like old takeout and stinky gym socks.

It was also unoccupied and there were no signs of explosives, according to one of his men, who used to be an Army demo-man.

'Clear!'

* * *

Riley and Bozer made their way up the stairs of the apartment building, trying not to touch the railing, after Gonzales' team had called the all-clear.

Gonzales himself greeted them at the door and gestured to a laptop on a filthy table.

Bozer and Riley stepped forward to take a closer look, and exchanged a glance.

The laptop showed a live feed of Mac and Charlie attempting to disarm the bombs.

Bozer nudged the hacker, and pointed at something (or rather, somethings) hidden in the detritus on the table. He snapped on a glove and picked up two small, rubbery pieces.

A prosthetic nose and chin.

(There went some of the silver lining they were hoping for. They were hopeful on getting an ID on The Ghost – or at least a decent physical description – based on what the soldiers on base had seen.)

Riley pulled out her phone and dialled Matty, expression grim and frustrated.

'It's a taunt.'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Riley and Bozer hauled two large boxes of evidence into Jill's lab, followed by several members of Gonzales' team, similarly burdened.

The tac-team put down the boxes and left, heading back to the garage, most likely (they were on high alert and had to be ready to head out at any moment), while Bozer and Riley stayed to help Jill out.

There was a _lot_ of evidence to work through.

Jill made a face as she opened the first evidence bag, releasing that awful stench of gym socks and rotting takeout.

Bozer made a sympathetic face as he pulled on a pair of gloves.

'Yeah…I think the delivery guy didn't get out much. Or, you know, do spring cleaning.'

'Yeah, or _any_ cleaning, ever.'

Riley, who'd just opened another evidence bag with gloved hands, quickly held it away from her. This one was particularly stinky

Bozer nodded.

'He was too busy watching YouTube videos and playing video games…and not even the social ones.'

It wasn't terribly surprising that no-one had reported him missing.

Jill nodded as she looked up from examining a sample under her microscope.

'So The Ghost picked his target well.'

* * *

 **LA AIR FORCE BASE**

 **LA**

* * *

'We're clear in Sector 4D.'

'Clear in 4E.'

'Clear in 4F.'

Jack sighed, glancing at the Major in charge of base security, who nodded grimly and responded.

'Move on to the next square, boys.' The Major looked back at Jack. 'You good to take 8G, Dalton?'

Jack nodded.

He'd feel better if he was actually out there doing something, even if this grid search had turned up nothing so far.

Jack Dalton was a man of action, after all.

* * *

'Could you get us a large notebook, a pencil, a ruler, some mirrors, some prisms, duct-tape, a protractor and a tape measure?'

Charlie spoke to one of the younger EODs as Mac muttered and paced around the explosives storage facility, doing calculations in his head.

The young man looked very confused.

'Uh…how many mirrors and prisms? How much duct-tape?'

Charlie called out to his old EOD partner.

'Mac, how many mirrors and prisms do you need? And how much duct-tape?'

Mac ignored him for a moment, most likely trying to get to a point in his calculations where he could pause and talk to Charlie for a second, before replying.

'As many and as much as I can get!'

That wasn't much of an answer, but he'd already gone back to his pacing and muttering as soon as he'd finished speaking. Charlie was reasonably accustomed to the younger man's eccentricities, so just shrugged. The young base EOD looked even more confused and a little sceptical (his superiors had heard of these guys, and they were very well-regarded, but in his eyes, the blonde one, MacGyver, was just plain crazy), but noted down the list of items anyway.

Charlie just smiled wryly.

(He got it. Mac's methods were unusual, to say the least. And he was definitely weird and particularly nerdy, even among 'bomb nerds'.)

'Mac's definitely crazy, and he's got crazy ways of doing things, but trust me, there's nobody else you want doing this. He's one of the best in the business.'

* * *

'…Clear.'

The last sector had turned up nothing.

The Major turned to Jack.

'This guy really does live up to his name, doesn't he?'

Jack just nodded, then snorted, a dark-humoured sound.

(Looking for light in the darkness was key to getting through what they had in the past and what they'd face in the future. The Major, like any experienced soldier, knew that.)

'Oh, you have no idea, man. No idea…'

* * *

In the dark, Charlie carefully attached the mirror to the wall of the room, then called out to Mac, who was supervising.

All EOD techs had to be pretty smart guys, with good grasps of science, in particular electrical engineering and certain fields of chemistry, but Mac could blow them all out of the water.

What they were rigging up was so complicated and so massive (it made the rig he'd made at his house last year look like child's play – a major reason for that was the need to avoid accidentally detonating a bomb by reflecting light into one of those receivers) that he was probably the only one who could keep track of it all.

(He was being a very hands-on supervisor, of course. Mac got twitchy when he had nothing to do with his hands for longer than fifteen minutes, unless he was asleep or unconscious.)

'Sixty feet for the next one, on an angle of 137 degrees, right, Mac?'

The blonde finished straightening a prism on a stack of C4, then pulled out the plan he'd drawn up and stashed in his pocket, glancing at it, before shooting Charlie a thumbs-up.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'Tell me you have something.'

Matty strode into the lab, where Riley, Jill and Bozer were hard at work. The three of them exchanged a glance, and she knew, instantly, sighing internally as Bozer spoke.

(Forensics hadn't turned up anything last Christmas at Mac's house either. Charlie's very thorough inspection of the bombs had come up blank, too.)

'Uh…we don't have something.' He paused and parsed what he said. 'Anything.'

Jill gestured at the computer to which the mass spec was connected, the screen identifying the latest sample as a common glue used on TV dinner packaging.

'He really lives up to his name.'

* * *

 **LA AIR FORCE BASE**

 **LA**

* * *

'Alright, on three, two, one…'

Mac turned on the laser pointer he was holding (at a very specific angle, pointed at a very specific spot), and watched as the light bounced off a series of mirrors, was refracted through various prisms and hit four photocells at the exact same time.

He gave a sigh of relief as the wireless receivers shut down, as did Charlie and the two best EODs on base.

One of them, a man twelve years Mac's senior who reminded him a little of Al (or, at least, the man Al should be now – happily married, with two kids under ten), gave a grin, and spoke, voice full of the dark humour that anyone who spent their days working with things likely to blow you up would develop.

(It was the only way to get through it, sometimes.)

'Well, now onto the easy part, fellas…'

He gestured to the absolutely huge and incredibly complicated bomb in front of him. They all chuckled and got to work.

* * *

 **FIVE HOURS LATER**

* * *

Mac, Charlie and the two EODs all sank to the ground, utterly exhausted and spent. Then, they all turned to each other, bursting into laughter (the laughter of those who'd looked death in the face and survived), as the EOD that reminded Mac of Al let out a triumphant whoop.

They'd done it.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

As Mac, Charlie and the EODs gave the all-clear, Riley's laptop chimed.

An email.

From an email address she didn't recognize.

With a sinking feeling, a very bad feeling, in her stomach, she opened it.

(Her custom-made anti-virus software would have caught any viruses…but that didn't mean the email was free from _harm._ )

There was an AVI file attached.

A video.

* * *

On the big screen, Alfred Pena walked into that building in Afghanistan.

He stepped on that fateful pressure plate and…

* * *

As the footage finished playing, Bozer and Jill stared in shock, while Riley frantically started typing, trying to trace the email, and Matty pulled out her phone, dialling Mac's number.

* * *

 **LA AIR FORCE BASE**

 **LA**

* * *

Mac slowly lowered his phone from his ear, hoping against all hope (utterly, totally irrationally) that he'd gone mad and was hearing things.

 _No, no, no, no!_

Jack and Charlie, who were laughing about something or the other, swapping stories with the other soldiers as the neutralized bombs were taken away, stopped and looked at him, sharing a concerned glance.

Mac looked paler than usual.

And he had _that_ look in his eyes.

Focused. Worried. Scared. Angry and trying to control it and mostly succeeding. A touch desperate. More than a touch guilty.

And more than a touch obsessed.

He gestured to the half-cleared explosives.

'This was a diversion.'

And then, he ran out of the explosives storage facility.

'Brother!

'Mac!'

With another glance at one another, Jack and Charlie took off after him.

Mac just called out as he kept running through the base, towards the EODs' equipment storage area.

'He's going after the Penas!'

* * *

 **BORROWED VAN**

 **(LEGIT BORROWED)**

 **(FOR ONCE)**

 **ON-ROUTE TO THE PENA FAMILY RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

'…Come on, come on…'

Mac rang Rachel Pena's number, hoping that he was wrong and that she'd pick up and ask him why he was calling…

(He had a very good idea as to why The Ghost needed to keep him and Charlie and the team behind them occupied for as long as possible with those bombs.)

(And he really, really didn't like that logical conclusion.)

No answer.

He hung up as it went to voicemail, shaking his head at Jack, who was driving.

The former CIA agent simply stepped harder on the gas.

* * *

 **PENA FAMILY RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

They came to a screeching halt outside Rachel and Annabelle's home, and Jack, Mac and Charlie all got out of the car as fast as possible.

Mac stayed Jack, however, when he went to run up the path and the front steps to the closed front door. The blonde gestured to Charlie.

'We need to do a sweep first.'

Charlie was already getting a bomb disposal robot they'd borrowed from the EODs on base out of the back.

 _Trust me, I want to storm through that front door, guns blazing – metaphorically – too._

 _But this is The Ghost we're dealing with._

 _We have to check for traps._

 _Even if that uses up precious time._

* * *

As Charlie carefully steered the bomb disposal robot around the outside of the Pena home, Jack paced along the road.

He was a man of action.

The distinct lack of action was really bothering him.

Especially when innocent lives were at stake.

Mac securely duct-taped some kind of sensor-like thing (Jack had seen him use something like this before, that time when Murdoc's little assassin club had turned on him – it was something like a mobile gas chromophore? Chromatograph? The name didn't matter; he just remembered that it 'sniffed out' explosives.) to what seemed to be three brooms taped to one another (he'd 'borrowed' those from the neighbours) to form a very long stick.

He then handed the completed device to Jack.

'Run that over as much of the yard and the house as you can reach.' He paused and gestured down to their feet. ' _Don't_ let your feet leave the sidewalk.'

Jack grinned as he took the electronic-bomb-sniffer-thing-on-a-stick, glad to have something to do, and also trying to find a little light in the darkness for his partner.

'Like that don't-touch-the-lava game, got it, brother!'

That got a tiny little smile out of the blonde, who gave a little nod in thanks, before heading over to talk to Charlie.

* * *

With Charlie and Mac confident that there were no traps in the yard and that the windows and doors were clear, the pair of them and Jack stood on the front steps. Mac picked the lock, and opened it very carefully, Jack holding his gun at the ready.

Nothing happened.

Mac stuck his head in the door and called out.

'Rachel? Annabelle?'

No answer.

His face grew more set, _that_ look from earlier (focus and anger and guilt and worry and fear and desperation and obsession) reappearing.

Mac stepped out of the way and Charlie steered the bomb disposal robot into the house.

Jack glanced at his partner, then pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialled.

'Matty, Ri, Boze, Jill…you guys got anything?'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Bozer paced as Riley typed frantically (the email was looking like a dead end, but she had one last trick up her sleeve that she _had_ to try) and Jill tracked Rachel and Annabelle Pena's movements using ATM cameras, traffic cameras, CCTV and social media, with Matty acting as a second pair of eyes.

'…why would he do this? Who'd put out a hit on an Army widow who works as a nurse and her eight-year-old daughter?'

Matty turned and glanced at Bozer.

'This isn't a hit, Bozer.' She paused, looking back at the screen as Jill made a noise of frustration. The Penas had gotten safely home last night, and then…nothing. She'd lost them. 'It's personal, just like last Christmas.' She looked back at Bozer again. 'The Ghost is going after them to hurt Mac.'

Bozer sighed.

He'd thought as much, but hoped against hope.

Another villain with a crazy, creepy and deadly obsession with his BFF.

And more people he cared about (civilians, innocents, a _child_ ) used to get to Mac.

All the hot chocolate and pastrami and mac'n'cheese and eight-layered chocolate cake and waffles (with bacon _and_ fried chicken _and_ hot sauce) in the world couldn't fix this.

Riley made a noise of frustration as that last trick failed. She let out a breath, took another deep one in, and then resumed her typing with renewed vehemence, helping Jill in her search for the Penas.

They'd gone home last night.

They really didn't seem to be there now, and Jill could find no sign of them leaving, so The Ghost, most likely, had taken them from their home…

* * *

 **PENA FAMILY RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

'Clear.'

Charlie's voice was flat and worried as he and Mac finished searching the Pena family home.

No explosive devices, no explosive residue, absolutely nothing.

Nothing seemed to be out of place, either.

Then again, Mac was _very_ familiar with how diabolically clever and talented The Ghost was.

(He'd even found Mac's secret escape hatch, after all.)

Matty's voice sounded out from Jack's phone.

'CSIs are on their way. Riley, Jill and Bozer are searching for the Penas.' She paused, voice somehow gentling and growing stronger at the same time. 'We'll find them, Mac.'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

With no other options available to them, Riley, Jill and Bozer were systematically tracking every vehicle that'd entered and then left the Penas' neighbourhood between the time they'd gotten home and the time Mac, Jack and Charlie had arrived at their house.

It was slow.

Very, very slow.

The three of them all looked up from their respective laptops, made eye contact for a beat, and then returned to typing with renewed speed and vigour.

* * *

'Got it!' Riley looked up from her laptop as an image of a warehouse on the outskirts of LA appeared, and Matty held out her phone so that the hacker could talk to the team out in the field. 'Mac, Jack, Charlie, I'm texting you the address now.'

* * *

 **WAREHOUSE**

 **(SERIOUSLY, WHY IS IT ALWAYS WAREHOUSES?)**

 **LA**

* * *

Jack parked the car a good distance from the warehouse, and all three of them had to restrain the urge to run towards the closed doors and break them open by any means possible, immediately, when they got out.

Instead, Jack checked his weapon, while Charlie got the bomb disposal robot out from the back of the van and Mac pulled out his phone and called Riley.

'Riley, we don't want to go in blind so-'

'One step ahead of you, Mac.' He managed a little smile at that. 'Jill and I are already trying to get into The Ghost's feeds; I'll link you in as soon as we're in.'

'Thanks, Riley.'

 _We have so many people behind us._

 _Really, really good people, too._

He took a deep breath, staring at the warehouse as Charlie started driving the robot towards it.

 _That's just going to have to be enough._

* * *

Mac cut the duct-tape off the three brooms that were taped together, then grabbed the remainder of the roll he'd taken with him from the Air Force base. He took a piece of thin plastic pipe that he'd 'borrowed' from another nearby warehouse, and held the end of that to one of the brooms, leaving a few inches of overlap, before using the duct-tape to attach them together.

He continued until he'd made a very, very long stick, nearly three stories high. It was tricky to balance and hold still, but it was at least long and reasonably stable.

He taped his phone to the end of it (Jack was talking to Riley and Matty on his and Charlie was still checking all the windows and doors – they were wired just like the ones in Mac's house had been, but perhaps there was a weakness they could exploit…though they both doubted it, it never hurt to check), then ran over to the warehouse and raised his phone on the very long stick to the roof slowly.

'Riley, are you guys getting that?'

It was Bozer's voice that replied.

'Yeah, bro, your giant selfie-stick's doing its job. We've got a decent view of the roof.'

Riley's voice chimed in.

'We're sending the feed to Charlie's phone now. Jill and I are still trying to get through The Ghost's encryption…'

Jill spoke up.

'He has to have hired an expert to do it, this is far more complex than what he's previously done…'

Mac, Jack and Charlie exchanged grim looks, before Jack forced a grin of sorts to his face and rubbed his hands together.

'Alright, fellas, what's the plan?'

'We can't get in through any of the windows and doors…'

'…and we can't see inside, because the windows are all blacked out.'

They'd been coated with black paint, so they couldn't even verify that Annabelle and Rachel were in there, or that there was a bomb, or how big that bomb was.

(Still, based on the wiring that was showing on the outside – and the fact that they were dealing with The Ghost – Mac and Charlie were as sure as they could be that there was an explosive in there.)

Mac pointed at Charlie's phone screen, which seemed to show that the roof was clear of any wiring or anything else that looked suspicious.

'We can't tunnel in, so we only have one possible approach: from the roof.' He pointed at something that looked like a ceiling vent of some kind. 'We might be able to get in through that.'

Jack looked up at the three-stories-high warehouse, with smooth sides. Not many handholds and footholds, to say the least.

'How are we gonna get up there, brother?'

Mac had already turned away and was looking at their surroundings. Junk and stuff from the other warehouses, the van and its contents, a couple of trees on the other side of the fence that separated the industrial park from the freeway…

'We're going to become Spider-Men.'

Without further explanation, he ran off to do his thing.

Jack looked confused.

'Look, I wouldn't be surprised if you've got some radioactive spiders lying around, man, but do we really have time to do the whole get-bitten-by-one-and-develop-mutant-powers thing? 'Cause I reckon those aren't the sort of thing you can develop overnight, I reckon it'd take a while…'

Charlie just snorted and shook his head.

Mac and Jack were really something to behold.

* * *

Mac, with Jack and Charlie acting as counter-weights on the ground, hauled himself onto the roof. He unwound the coil of rope that was wrapped around his torso, and started tying it securely to a pole that protruded from the warehouse's roof. He pulled hard on it a couple of times to test the knot, before tossing the end down to Jack.

Not long later, Mac, Jack and Charlie were on the roof, crouching around the vent that Mac had seen on Charlie's phone earlier.

It seemed to be free from wiring. The gas chromatograph hadn't detected any explosive residue in the vicinity either.

Then, Jack's phone rang. He picked up, to find Riley's face on screen.

She looked triumphant, tired and relieved.

'We got in.'

The image switched to a feed inside the warehouse, showing Rachel and Annabelle, chained to a large bomb. It was about half the size of the ones that'd been at the base.

 _But it's still more than big enough to get the job done._

Rachel, who looked terrified herself, but was trying very hard not to show it, was trying to soothe and comfort her daughter, who had tear-tracks down her face.

Jack looked over at his partner.

'We gotta get them out of there pronto, brother.'

Mac nodded, rather curtly, _that_ look on his face again.

'I know.' At least there didn't seem to be any sort of timer on the bomb, or a receiver that'd grant it remote detonation capabilities. It was simply wired to be detonated if one of the windows or doors was opened or if what looked like pressure plates on the floor were triggered (he could just about make out the outlines of one or two when he peered through the ceiling vent using the magnifying glass of his Swiss Army knife, which suggested to him that the whole floor was covered with them, since this _was_ The Ghost). So, it wasn't actually that simple. With a last glance at Charlie, who nodded, Mac started unscrewing the ceiling vent. The other two men helped him lift it out of the way, and then he stuck his head in. 'Rachel, Annabelle!'

After a moment of confusion, they both looked up at him. Neither Jack nor Charlie missed the spark of hope that ignited in Rachel's eyes. Jack smiled to himself, despite the situation.

(That was what their boy did – he could bring hope to hopeless situations.)

'Mac!'

'Hang in there, we're going to get you out.'

'How? There's pressure plates all over the floor!'

Mac and Charlie exchanged a glance as their suspicions confirmed. Mac swallowed, and stuck his head back into the vent opening.

'I'll think of something, I promise.'

Then, he pulled his head back out and started looking around the roof, muttering to himself, occasionally sticking his head back into the warehouse and looking around.

After a couple of minutes, Mac then hurried over to the edge of the roof and started on his way down again.

'Be back in a minute!'

Jack and Charlie just exchanged a glance and very exasperated (though affectionate) head-shakes.

'You'd think I'd be used to that by now…'

'Yeah, me too.'

* * *

A minute later, Mac, with a satchel thrown over his shoulder holding various bits and bobs, came back onto the roof. He pulled out a heap of rope, and started knotting lengths together in a web-like pattern, demonstrating the knot to Charlie and Jack.

'Got it?' Charlie and Jack nodded. 'Keep going with that.'

Mac then put together something that looked an awful lot like a mini-flamethrower. Jack happened to look up from his knots as Mac tested it and nodded in satisfaction.

'Brother, is that-'

'No, it is not a flamethrower, Jack. It's a cutting torch.'

As Jack's face fell, Mac proceeded to cut a hole in the roof, using a piece of duct-tape rolled into a tape 'donut' to ensure that the metal he cut out didn't drop into the warehouse.

As he cut, he explained what they were doing.

'We're going to make a rope system that can support our weight and Rachel and Annabelle's, so that we can rappel in there, get them free, and then climb back up without putting any weight on the warehouse floor.' He paused, and gave a very small smile. 'Like Tom Cruise in _Mission Impossible_.'

Jack crossed his arms.

'We've talked about this, man! _Die Hard_ is-'

Mac rolled his eyes.

'-a far-superior movie franchise, as you've told me twenty-three times!'

* * *

Once inside the warehouse, Mac, Jack and Charlie half-climbed and half-swung their way along the rope web on the ceiling while wearing the improvised harnesses Mac had put together, until they were directly above Annabelle and Rachel.

Then, Mac and Charlie lowered themselves down carefully so that they could get a better look at the bomb.

Mac even managed a little smile and wave for Annabelle when he got down to roughly eye-level, curling up somewhat to prevent his legs from touching the ground.

'We're going to get you out of here soon. You've been really brave, Annabelle.'

The little girl managed a smile back, dimples showing in her tear-stained cheeks.

'Just like my daddy!'

Mac swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded.

'Yeah, just like your dad.' He tried to swallow the persistent lump again. 'He'd be really proud of you.'

Rachel smiled at him too, before Charlie beckoned him over. Mac shifted his weight so that he leaned closer to the other EOD tech, who did the same.

The older EOD gestured at the restraints that secured Rachel and Annabelle to the bomb. The cuffs around their wrists were welded to the chains that ran all around and into the middle of the pile of explosive.

And the locks of the cuffs were wired. Mac studied them for a minute, and found that, just as he expected (and just as he was sure Charlie was about to tell him), the bomb would detonate if the lock on the cuffs was opened.

Charlie spoke very quietly into Mac's ears.

'It'd take us, what, two, three hours to disconnect those cuffs…'

Mac nodded in grim agreement. He thought for a moment (there had to be another way, there always was - he ignored the voice in his head that mentioned that there hadn't been another way for Zoe, he couldn't think like that right now…), until a spark of an idea hit him.

They couldn't unlock the cuffs.

(He and Charlie simply couldn't disconnect the cuffs from the bomb while dangling from the ceiling in such a precarious, risky position. Mac already knew that just about every muscle in his body would ache later, from the strain of climbing along the ceiling then holding this odd, acrobatic position, as fit as he was. Charlie would be feeling the same. They couldn't hold this for the two or three hours needed; they'd wind up so sore and fatigued that they'd overbalance or put a foot down on the floor or they'd make a mistake, and it'd be all over.)

They couldn't break through the cuffs manually, either.

(They'd give at the weakest point, the opening, which would trigger detonation.)

Mac whispered back into Charlie's ear.

'We're going to have to cut through them.'

Charlie leaned back a little, shot him a look.

'You want to bring a powerful ignition source within inches of two hundred pounds of the most powerful non-nuclear explosive known to man?'

Mac gave a very, very small, sardonic smile.

'Well, I don't _want_ to, but we don't have any other options.'

After a moment, Charlie nodded in agreement, and Mac started climbing back up towards the ceiling as Charlie checked for a pressure plate underneath the chairs the Penas were sitting on.

* * *

Mac very carefully cut through the cuffs on Annabelle's wrists, then Rachel's, doing his best to keep the flame away from them, as well as the explosives.

Charlie, just as carefully, held several small pieces of metal in place to act as shields.

Collectively, they all held their breaths.

When their wrists were free and they were still there, the unexploded bomb before them, they all let out a small breath of relief.

* * *

A couple of minutes later, Annabelle was on Charlie's back, secured with a makeshift harness.

'Keep your eyes closed, and hold on tight…' Mac smiled at her as best as he could, remembering the animal documentary that Annabelle had insisted on watching with him last time he'd visited. '…like a baby spider monkey.'

That made the little girl smile, and then, she nodded solemnly, holding on tightly to Charlie's neck with her arms and his waist with her legs, then screwing her eyes shut.

Charlie then made the slow ascent back up to the web of ropes on the ceiling.

Rachel watched as her daughter slowly made her way closer to safety, as Mac started to work on a harness for Rachel, winding rope through Jack's harness, giving his partner orders as he did so.

'Once you get them to a safe distance, give me a call, and I'll start disarming this thing-'

Jack made a noise of protest.

'Brother-'

'I have the most expertise disarming The Ghost's handiwork. I know how he builds his bombs. I'm the best person for the job.'

Jack sighed internally.

Arguing with Mac was useless when he was in this mood.

(And his partner _was_ right. Mac had the most experience, as far as they knew, of anyone alive in dealing with The Ghost's handiwork, followed closely by Charlie.)

He was the best man for the job…but still…

'I'm not leaving you all alone with a big boom-boom in a warehouse booby-trapped six ways to Sunday, son.'

Mac gestured to Rachel (who was pointedly ignoring their conversation, remarkably calm, as she had been through this whole ordeal – Jack supposed that since you needed nerves of vibranium to be an EOD tech, you'd need at least nerves of steel to be married to one) with his head.

'I need you and Charlie to get Rachel and Annabelle to a safe distance, and keep them safe in case The Ghost tries something else.'

Like taking a pot-shot at them, for example. Or lobbing a grenade at them.

(Both entirely possible, Mac thought.)

Jack swallowed.

He hated leaving his partner alone in dangerous situations, let alone in a situation like this, which was a whole new level of danger.

But Mac was right.

He needed to get Rachel out of there, help Charlie keep them safe.

And with that unmistakeable _plea_ in Mac's voice…

How could he do anything but what the younger man asked of him?

Jack nodded and clasped the blonde's shoulder briefly.

'Will do, son.'

* * *

Mac watched as first Charlie and Annabelle, then Jack and Rachel, disappeared through the former ceiling vent.

Then, he turned his attention to the bomb, trying to relax his muscles as much as possible without touching the floor, resting his weight on the two chairs where the cut-through handcuffs rested, examining the explosive very carefully.

After fifteen minutes that felt like an eternity, he got a phone call from Jack.

'We're at a safe distance.' His partner paused. 'Good luck, son.'

Mac gave a little smile, a cleansing wave of relief washing through him.

'Thanks, Jack.'

Then, he took three deep breaths, blocked everything out or boxed it up for later, and turned his full concentration to the bomb.

* * *

 **THREE HOURS LATER**

* * *

A physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted Mac trudged out of the warehouse, the bomb neutralized, to find a local bomb squad and Jack waiting for him.

He gave a quick briefing to the leader of the local bomb squad, and then, as he and his men entered the building to deal with the cg-N, headed over to his partner, who was leaning on a Phoenix car.

Jack smiled at him, wide and proud and relieved, clapping Mac on the shoulder.

'Good work, brother.' They got into the car, Jack updating him as they did so. 'Rachel and Annabelle are with Gonzales' team; Anita's giving 'em a check-up, but I reckon they're gonna be okay…' He didn't just mean physically, either. Mother and daughter were clearly resilient and tough cookies. 'Riley and Jill are tracing the signal from The Ghost's spy-cams, but they ain't got nothing yet…' Jack tossed Mac a pair of sandwich bags. 'And your girl sent a whole stack of these with Gonzales.' Jack gestured to the bags with a wry grin. 'Seemed pretty clear that these two were for you, so…'

Both sandwich bags had _eat me, or else_ written on them in Beth's handwriting, underlined twice. One contained a ham, cheese and tomato sandwich, the other a turkey, cucumber and mayonnaise one.

Obediently, Mac bit into the ham sandwich as Jack started the engine.

(He had no desire to wind up on Beth's bad side.)

(Quite the opposite, in fact.)

(He had a sneaking suspicion that she somehow already knew that he hadn't eaten in sixteen hours, despite doing arduous – mentally and physically – work. If he let that count stretch out even longer, even though their mission wasn't over yet, he would be in trouble.)

(And not just due to the crashing of his blood glucose levels.)

* * *

Rachel Pena, wrapped in a shock blanket, with Annabelle (lightly sedated) lying down at her side, curled into her mom and covered with another shock blanket, shook her head.

'I didn't get a good look at him, I'm sorry. He always covered his face…'

Mac sighed and nodded, expecting as much.

'Again, I'm so, so sorry, Rachel…'

She shook her head firmly.

'It's not your fault, Mac. It's this _psychopath's_ fault.' There was something fierce in her eyes when she said that, as if she'd like to punch The Ghost a few times in the face herself. Jack was all for giving her first dibs, all things considered. ' _Stop apologizing_.'

(He'd apologized three times now.)

Mac swallowed, seemingly not quite convinced, eyes lingering on Annabelle for a moment, but eventually nodded anyway, looking a touch sheepish when he did.

Then, his phone (none the worse for the wear, despite having been taped to what Bozer had called a giant selfie-stick) rang.

'Riley?'

'I traced the signal. I found him, Mac.'

* * *

 **A DODGY PART OF TOWN**

 **LA**

* * *

Mac, Jack and Charlie, eyes and ears peeled, strode through the neighbourhood.

Riley had pinned the location down to this couple of blocks, as The Ghost was still moving.

Out of the corner of his eye, Mac caught a glimpse of a figure in black, a baseball cap pulled low over his face.

As discreetly as possible, he gestured towards the man.

'There. That's got to be him.'

A second later, the figure took off running.

They'd been made.

Mac took off at top speed after him, ignoring the protests of his sore and exhausted body, like he always did on missions.

Jack and Charlie followed at his heels.

* * *

The three of them chased The Ghost into a very rundown house with graffiti on all the walls and an overgrown yard, the fence half falling down.

It was there that they lost him.

Mac flung doors open, almost frantic.

'He can't disappear, he must be…'

Then, suddenly, he stopped in his tracks and sniffed the air. It was a distinct smell, one he knew well, which had been masked by the foul odour of the rundown house…

Mac's eyes widened the instant that Charlie's did, at the exact same moment that Jack flung open a closet door, revealing a bomb.

A PETN bomb, judging by the smell.

And there were fifteen seconds left on the timer.

'Run!'

* * *

Running for their lives, Mac, Jack and Charlie tore out of the house, flinging themselves down to the ground as they reached the road.

As they did so, they heard a blast behind them, felt the heat of the explosion wash over them, as the force threw them even harder to the asphalt.

* * *

An indeterminate amount of time later, Mac, ears ringing, head ringing even more and very, very sore, rolled over as best as he could, and tried to sit up.

As he did, he caught a brief flash of a man at the edge of his field of vision, Caucasian with greying hair, smiling darkly at him.

The Ghost.

Mac tried to get up and pursue him, but he couldn't even tell which way was up or down…

The man disappeared.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Charlie and Jack exchanged a worried glance as they and Mac strode into the Phoenix.

The entire way back (in a van driven by Gonzales), Mac had been silent, lost in his rabbit warren/labyrinth of a mind, re-shaping paperclips that he'd had stashed in his pockets.

As Jack sighed internally, Charlie gave a helpless little shrug, before wincing as his body reminded him that he'd badly jarred his shoulder when they'd half-been-thrown and half-thrown-themselves to the asphalt.

(They were also all covered in scratches, scrapes and bruises from that, and still had a bit of ringing in their ears.)

They walked past the war room, where Matty was standing, talking seriously to Bozer, Riley and Jill. Charlie's brow furrowed in confusion.

'We're not going for debrief?'

Mac finally spoke for the first time in about half an hour as he led them into an elevator.

'Infirmary first.'

Charlie blinked twice, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Jack hid a grin as the older EOD tech spoke.

'Who are you, and what have you done with the real Angus MacGyver?'

Jack couldn't hide his grin any longer, and leaned over conspiratorially to Charlie.

'He's a changed man!' Charlie looked very sceptical, at least until Jack continued. 'You know what a good woman can do…'

Mac shook his head, managing an eye roll.

 _Bozer cheers people up through food and silly jokes and bold declarations._

 _Beth likes to use a mixture of food and kind but logical words._

 _Riley dishes out tough love and blatant truths with a touch – or more - of heartfelt tenderness. So does Matty._

 _As for Jack…his methods are annoying, but highly effective._

* * *

Mac and Jack obediently sat down on two of the infirmary beds that Beth was standing expectantly next to, as the young doctor turned to Charlie, holding out a hand for him to shake with his uninjured side, a smile on her face.

(Though, he absolutely did not miss the deep concern and worry that flickered across her face as the three of them walked into the infirmary, quickly replaced by a professional but nonetheless warm and caring expression.)

'Hi, you must be Charlie. I'm Dr Beth Taylor, please call me Beth, and it's lovely to meet you, aside from the circumstances.'

Charlie shook her hand in return, and let her herd him over to a third bed. Before he knew it, he was sitting down, the curtain drawn for privacy, with his shirt half-off, and she was examining his shoulder carefully.

No wonder Mac was a good patient for her.

He didn't have much of a choice.

(The pretty, petite brunette had an awful lot more fierceness and strength of will in her than it looked.)

* * *

When they'd all been checked over, their scrapes cleaned and Charlie's arm placed into a sling, Beth handed each of them a packet of Epsom salts.

'Take a hot bath as soon as possible.' Apparently, she was determined to save them from muscle soreness too. She turned to Mac in particular. 'Yes, you can use your kiddie-pool-vacuum-cleaner hot-tub.' She narrowed her eyes at him, jabbing at the air in front of his chest. ' _But_ only if you check all the electrical _thoroughly_ beforehand, and preferably when I'm on hand to treat you for any accidental electrocution.'

Charlie and Jack just exchanged knowing looks and grins as Mac agreed to the terms.

 _What?_

 _They're entirely reasonable. And of course I was going to check the electrical before use._

 _I don't have a death wish._

* * *

 **MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

Later that evening, they all sat around the fire-pit, eating s'mores.

Bozer, Jack and Charlie exchanged embarrassing and amusing stories about Mac, which Riley listened to eagerly, a mischievous little grin on her face.

Meanwhile, Mac taught Cassian how to roast a marshmallow perfectly, while Diane told Matty and Beth about Cassian's recent parent-teacher conferences.

(The incredibly resilient boy was doing very well.)

There was a knock on the door, loud and clear.

Mac got up and answered it, revealing his father on the other side.

He looked very, very serious.

Grim.

Mac had a very, very bad feeling, a strong suspicion before his father even spoke, after walking out onto the back deck with Mac at his side.

'Murdoc's escaped.'

* * *

AN: *dun, dun, dun* You guys probably hate me for leaving it there, but…come on! What else was I going to do? And yeah, I know, there was a _lot_ of drama in this episode. Also, I swear that I never attempted to synch the content of my eps with the real ones – I planned this out to be episode 20 last May! It's just a coincidence – statistically inevitable, as Mac says! I hope you guys liked this – Mac clearly has two enemies that are obsessed with him, The Ghost and Murdoc. I think we (and the show) sometimes might forget that The Ghost is also obsessed with Mac (at least until now), because he's a far more mysterious and less fleshed-out figure than Murdoc. (Also, David Dastmalchian is pretty damn incredible. The Ghost is - or was, until now – faceless.) Anyway, I hope you guys enjoyed the ride!

There will not be an episode tag for _Detours_ for this ep, but here's the press release for the next one:

3.21, Mac to Murdoc. Murdoc kidnaps a certain doctor, bringing the MacGyvers into conflict (yet again) and bringing out a side of Mac he really wishes he didn't have. Meanwhile, Riley and Jill find new information on Cassian's mother, Nadia.

And I have more bad news for you – I'm going on holiday to Fiji for the next week, and will not be at home on Sunday (which is when I usually post). This means that I, like the show, will be going on a one-week hiatus…so you're going to have to wait a fortnight for this ep!

*runs off to a tropical island to escape your wrath*

Thoughts on 3.08, Revenge + Catacombs + Le Fantome: I liked this episode a lot more at the end than I did at the beginning, if that makes sense. I did really like the start with Charlie and Mac in Afghanistan, and the addition of the charity ball for veterans (in memory of Alfred Pena was a great touch!), as well as Mac and Riley's little chat (I knew he was going to break up with Nasha…but I'm still sad). I got a bit annoyed when Eileen was introduced, I was really thinking 'are we seriously getting another love interest for Mac now?' and that she sounded like Cage 2.0. Charlie coming back was great (I really like him, and honestly, I think if they're going to add someone else to the core cast – which they might need to do, given how small the cast is – I vote for either Charlie or Matty's husband, or both, I think they'd be great and interesting additions), and I liked the various flashbacks. I found Eileen became a more interesting character after her extreme interrogation technique moment, and I really did like the twists at the end. I think they did a very good job illustrating the dichotomy between her and Mac (from the start of their obsession with The Ghost, to how far they're willing to go to get him, to whether they bring 'insurance' with them to pull them back from the abyss or not, and of course, that end when she leaves and he stays). I also liked Matty's chat with him at the end. I really did miss Jack in this ep (far more than in Guts + Fuel + Hope), but to the show's credit, it was a really, really nice touch at the end with Matty's fond eye-roll and Jack's phone call and her perfect little line, 'if anyone can cheer you up, it's Jack'. I also think having Charlie there made a big difference in filling that hole, and also, to be fair to them, I'm not sure how I'd re-write most of the key scenes to include Jack, since pretty much all of them were either Mac and Charlie in Afghanistan, or between The Ghost, Mac and Eileen – Jack can't be in the first lot, and the second lot probably wouldn't have been added to by the presence of Jack. Honestly, I missed him because we didn't get to see him helping Mac deal with all the stuff that happened - I just really, really wished they'd added a scene with Jack at the end or the beginning, just talking to Mac about all of the drama that happened to the poor guy…and hence, I wrote an episode tag for that! It's called _The Weight of the World_ , please do check it out!


	21. Mac to Murdoc

AN: Warning on this ep – Murdoc is a truly horrible human being. My Murdoc, due to the events of 3.12, Crayons to Candle, is probably even more horrible than canon!Murdoc. Thus, this is a bit of a darker ep than usual – warnings for more violence/threats of violence than usual, torture and threats of torture (predominantly psychological) and implied, hypothetical, non-explicit sexual assault/rape (which does not happen). But, I promise, at the end of the day, this is a _MacGyver_ fic, and it's my _MacGyver_ fic too; there's silliness, humour, absurdity, a bit of fluff, light-in-the-darkness and the good guys ultimately win, of course!

Thoughts on 3.09, Specimen 234 + PAPR + Outbreak, at the end of this chapter, with spoilers.

* * *

 **LOCAL ZOO**

 **DETROIT**

* * *

'…Oh, no, man, you don't wanna do that, trust me, it ain't gonna be tasty…'

Jack, Mac and Riley could only watch helplessly as the lion (with a tranquillizer dart sticking out of its hindquarters, thanks to Jack) approached the USB stick (with the files that they really, really needed on it) nailed to a large, juicy steak.

(It was a really, really, really long story. These bad guys were creative, they'd give them that.)

The lion scarfed down the steak, USB stick and all.

(Jack couldn't really blame the animal. It looked like a damn good steak, even if he preferred his with a bit more of a char. Just a bit.)

(Not like Mac, who ate his steak medium-rare like an uncultured savage.)

(The irony was lost on Jack.)

Then, the beast fell unconscious, as the tranquilizer finally took effect. All three Phoenix agents groaned, and Jack turned to his partner.

'Okay, brother, what's your big plan to get that drive out of him?'

Mac sighed, a very wry, sardonic little smile appearing on his face after a moment.

'You're not going to like it.' He paused. 'It involves laxatives. Lots and lots of laxatives.'

Riley made a face, as did Jack.

'…Yeah, I don't like it.'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…You cannot be serious, bro! There is no way that there are forty-seven legal uses for body bags, bleach, a shovel, disposable gloves, an area rug and a car with a large boot!'

Mac gave a smirk that was half-smug and half-sheepish.

'Well, the forty-seven uses are not _illegal_ , but I'm not sure how _legal_ twenty-three of them would be…'

Jill and Riley exchanged a glance as Bozer spluttered and started going on about the last time Mac had said that.

(They weren't sure if that was _actually_ the last time Mac had said that, but it had ended with Mission City High's football stadium destroyed and Mac and Bozer nearly getting expelled and almost getting arrested.)

The four of them were in the lab, doing nothing in particular as they tinkered with various think-tank-y projects.

They were keeping Mac busy, because it'd become abundantly clear since Murdoc's escape and The Ghost Incident of a week and a half ago that he could not be allowed to get lost down the rabbit hole in his mind right now.

(Beth had been helping, of course, but this was her day off, and she was doing some much-needed grocery shopping, according to the most recent chain of texts she'd exchanged with Mac.)

As Riley reminded Bozer to breathe, the lab doors _swooshed_ open and Matty entered.

Her expression was grave.

Even worried.

The Pandora's Box in Mac's brain started rattling and jumping, as the dark, scary thoughts inside fought hard (or rather, harder than usual) to escape.

* * *

'…Six minutes ago, Beth set off her distress signal here…'

Matty pointed at the screen, which showed a map of the area around the closest supermarket to Beth's apartment.

Bozer, Riley, Jack and Jill exchanged a glance. Mac, meanwhile, kept re-shaping paperclips.

All Phoenix employees carried a distress-signal-emitting device built into their car key fob for day-to-day life. They were rarely used (their covers were pretty solid), but they were considered necessary.

Matty continued, a clear note of worry in her voice.

(At least, clear for Matty the Hun, anyway.)

'…and we can't reach her.' Mac tossed the paperclips (oddly, shaped like a box or chest and an Ancient-Greek-style jar) onto the coffee table and made for the door. Matty crossed her arms. 'Where are you going, Blondie?'

Mac turned back, something set and determined, but also full of anger and worry and guilt and fear in his eyes (that same expression he'd had last week, when the Penas had been put in danger by The Ghost).

'It's him.' He gestured to the other inhabitants of the room. 'We all know it's him.' He pointed at the screen. 'So I am going to-'

Matty put her hands on her hips.

'No, you are _not_ , Mac.' He looked belligerent, and her expression and posture softened a little. 'Gonzales is only a couple of minutes away; he lives nearby.' The Phoenix tac-team leader was rostered off that day too. 'And if it is Murdoc, you know we won't find anything at the scene. He's going to contact you when he's ready.'

Reluctantly, Mac removed his hand from the door handle.

Matty was right.

That didn't mean he had to like it.

He started pacing around the war room.

Wordlessly, Jill picked up the paperclip bowl and passed it to Riley, who passed it to Bozer, who passed it to Jack, who reached out and put a hand on Mac's shoulder and squeezed gently, before offering him some paperclips.

* * *

As those thoughts from his Pandora's box swirled around his mind (all the attempts by Jack, Bozer, Riley, Jill and even Matty to distract him from them had failed, though he was grateful for the effort), Mac's phone chimed, and simultaneously terrified (for obvious reasons) and relieved (because he could _do_ something, now) he opened the text from the unknown number.

 _It's a long way to Tipperary, to the sweetest girl I know…_

He pressed a couple of buttons, sending the text onto the big screen. Everyone else stared at it, and Mac spoke, his voice clipped.

Angry.

(And underneath all that, full of guilt and torment and worry.)

'It's from a song popular during WWI. Beth's maternal grandmother is from Tipperary county in Ireland.'

(She'd asked him once about the origins of his unusual surname. The conversation had snowballed.)

Jack reached out and squeezed his shoulder again.

* * *

A few minutes later, a video call request appeared on Mac's phone, which had been cloned over to the big screen by Riley.

He answered, and Murdoc's face appeared. The assassin seemed to be standing in a warehouse of sorts, and was smiling smugly.

Mac really, really wanted to punch that smile off his face. He forced himself to relax and uncurl his fists.

'What do you want, Murdoc?'

The assassin smiled wider, clearly knowing he'd gotten to Mac, and the camera panned out, revealing that Murdoc was standing next to Beth, who looked completely, utterly terrified.

Her wrists were chained above her head (though thankfully she seemed able to stand without straining her shoulders) and there was a gag stuffed in her mouth.

(Mac really, really, really wanted to punch him.)

(If he were honest…he wanted to do more than punch him. A lot more.)

The assassin smiled even wider, the smile twisting into something that seemed friendly, but was a little…off.

'I really want to compliment you on your taste in women, Angus. She really is very beautiful…really reminds me of dear, departed Nadia…' Murdoc ran a finger down Beth's cheek, in a mockery of a lover's touch. Mac's fists clenched. The doctor, chained and gagged and terrified, even if she was clearly trying very hard to not let it show, tried to pull away, but couldn't. Murdoc turned away from her, looking back at the camera. At Mac. 'Then again, I guess we shouldn't be surprised, should we, Angus? We do have _so_ much in common, after all…' He stepped behind Beth, leaning down to rest his chin on her shoulder. She flinched, visibly, and kept looking at them, instead of at Murdoc, as if she was trying to forget he was there. Murdoc chuckled darkly, and straightened up, stroking her cheek again. Beth made a noise that sounded like a frightened, disturbed whimper through her gag, looking simultaneously like she was kicking herself for letting it out. 'You have no idea, dear, how much you remind me of my sweet little Cookie…' Murdoc turned back to Mac. '…which really gets me thinking, Angus. It really does. You turned my son against me, so I'm going to need another little one to take over the family business…' He smiled in a way that was clearly a taunt or a threat, something very cruel in it. '…I could do a lot worse than starting with brains _and_ beauty…'

Jill looked like she might be sick. Riley was glaring daggers at Murdoc. Matty looked like she planned to eviscerate him. A character based heavily on Murdoc was definitely going to die gruesomely, slowly and painfully in Bozer's next movie. Jack looked like he planned to shoot him through the eyes.

And none of them had ever seen Mac this angry.

(He was digging his nails into his palms in an effort to try and keep some control of himself.)

'If you hurt her, if you touch her, Murdoc, I will-'

Murdoc rolled his eyes, waving a hand in way that was deliberately blasé.

'Yeah, yeah, lock me in a concrete box…' He opened and closed his hands like puppet mouths. '…yada, yada, yada, same old, same old…'

Mac looked him dead in the eye.

'I was thinking more, _put you six feet under,_ Murdoc.'

He meant it.

In that moment, he really, really meant it.

They could all tell. On-screen, Beth's eyes widened.

Murdoc turned to her, still smiling in that horrifying way of his.

'What a romantic declaration; he really does love you!'

' _What do you want_ , Murdoc?'

Every single word out of Mac's mouth was full of anger (it overshadowed everything else) and very, very clipped.

The assassin, however, made a disapproving noise.

'So impatient, Angus!' He turned to Beth. 'Are you sure you want a man who doesn't like taking his time?' To her great credit, Beth glared at him with an awful lot of vehemence, looking away from the camera, away from them, for the first time. Murdoc then turned to Mac again. 'It's very, very hard to do any shopping when you're on the lam, so I need you to pick up a few things for me.' Murdoc grinned disturbingly. 'Don't worry, I've made it into a nice, fun little game, a scavenger hunt, if you will.' He stroked a hand along Beth's ponytail. 'I've even organized a prize!' His expression grew dark, serious, as he sought out Mac's anger-filled gaze. 'But no _cheating_ , Angus. You do this all alone, or…' There was the distinctive noise of a tactical knife's blade being exposed. A second later, the blade came into view, Murdoc holding it to Beth's throat, just resting it there so it didn't even leave a mark, let alone draw blood. '…something might just happen to your little prize.' The horrifying grin returned. 'I'll send your first clue along in half an hour.'

The screen went black.

There was a deafening silence in the war room for a beat, before Mac reached for the paperclip bowl.

But instead of picking up a paperclip or two, he knocked the whole bowl off the table with far too much force.

The glass bowl hit the opposite wall and shattered, scattering paperclips everywhere.

Mac stood with his back to the rest of the war room's inhabitants, breathing hard, shoulders visibly shifting up and down with each breath.

Then, he turned back to them, some kind of laser-sharp focus ( _obsessive_ focus) in his eyes as he glanced at Riley.

'Play it again.'

She raised her hands off her keyboard.

'Mac, I don't think that's-'

' _Play it again_!' He took a deep breath, then another, trying to reel in his temper. 'Trust me. Please. Play it again on double-speed.'

After a moment, Riley typed for a second, and then the video of their call with Murdoc started playing again, on double-speed.

Mac, meanwhile, watched Beth's face as she looked at them, blinking occasionally, very, very intently, and started scribbling on one of the glass walls of the war room with the lipstick he'd just stolen from Riley's bag.

It was a series of dots and dashes, which Jack quickly translated.

'Freight train horn. Ten minutes ago.' Mac nodded, not smiling, but looking, at least for a moment, a little lighter, a little relieved, a little less angry. Beth had blinked them a message in Morse code. She'd had the foresight and the calm and courage needed to keep her head on straight enough to send them that message. Jack smiled. The Phoenix did not hire shrinking violets. 'That's your girl, son. That's your girl.'

Riley and Jill glanced at one another, then both started typing on the laptops resting on their laps, trying to use that information to start working out a location. They put up a search radius around Beth's supermarket, based on how far Murdoc could have travelled with her between her distress signal going off and Murdoc's call, before using the freight train information to narrow it further.

Mac's phone rang, and he immediately picked it up off the coffee table, glancing at the caller ID.

His dad.

Or was it Oversight?

His question was answered when the man spoke.

'You are not to leave the Phoenix, Angus.' Oversight. 'As talented a doctor as Dr Taylor is, there are plenty in this country. You, on the other hand, are 50% of the individuals with your skill-set.'

Mac looked just as furious as he had at Murdoc.

Far too many times in his life, he'd been powerless to save someone he'd cared about, had had to watch them die.

His mother.

Al.

Zoe.

(Not to mention the near-misses. Jack, twice. Bozer. Riley. Cage. Rachel and Annabelle.)

One time would have been far too many in his mind, and he was _not_ going to let it happen again.

His dad walked into the room, his phone still held to his ear. Mac glared at his father.

Besides, Beth had welcomed them (welcomed him) into her home in the middle of the night, cared for him above and beyond what her job and her oaths required of her, and he was really going to just let Murdoc…

The glare grew more intense, angrier.

(If looks could kill, Jack thought, James would be deader than the dodo and Mac would be beating himself up for patricide.)

But before Mac could articulate any of the very unflattering and extremely furious opinions of his father floating in his mind, James MacGyver hung up his phone, and started tapping the glass to turn on top-secret mode.

Then, he looked at them all briefly (pressing home the point that this did not leave this room), and turned to his son.

He looked…apologetic.

More than a little angry. More than a little worried.

(And more than a little guilty.)

'Angus, if I could have saved your mother…' Nothing would have stood in his way. Not Oversight, not orders, not the vows he'd made to his country. 'What can I do to help?'

That raw fury faded from Mac's eyes, to be replaced by annoyance (his dad had, of course, had to check all of the Oversight boxes _first_ …), which was quickly replaced by something more tactical, more focused.

* * *

Five minutes later, they'd come up with a plan.

None of them were convinced that Murdoc gave a damn about the items he was going to make Mac get him.

Murdoc just wanted to make Mac suffer.

(He'd made his goals clear. He wanted to kill Mac, after making him suffer as much as he could.)

He was luring him to a final confrontation.

Their own personal Reichenbach.

Mac would do Murdoc's scavenger hunt, follow his instructions, seemingly all alone.

(He'd insisted, and no-one was inclined to argue with him. None of them trusted Murdoc any further than they could kick him, but they had to ensure they didn't give him a reason to hurt Beth.)

Jack and James would follow him from a safe distance, remaining undetected by the assassin.

And Matty, Riley, Bozer and Jill would help out as best as they could from the Phoenix, helping Mac with the clues and signalling him covertly through traffic lights and the like, as well as trying to determine where Murdoc was holding the doctor.

(They had several overlapping circles on the screen, but there were a lot of warehouses in those areas.)

With a last glance at the lipstick on the wall and the shattered paperclip bowl, Mac adjusted his leather jacket, and walked out of the war room.

* * *

Jack nudged his partner with an elbow as he, James and Mac prepared in the Phoenix armoury.

(It held a lot more than weapons.)

'See, brother, even the big-bad thinks you should've asked her out by now!'

(He worried that his partner was too far gone for bickering and bantering with him as they always did, and that was a very, very bad sign…but he had to try.)

Mac just gestured vaguely.

' _This_ is why I haven't, Jack.'

That was what had been locked in that Pandora's box.

This very situation was why, even though it'd been closer to seven months than six since Christmas, they hadn't been on a date.

Because of the target it'd paint on her back.

Lois Lane, MJ Watson, Pepper Potts, Gwen Stacey…bad things happened to superhero girlfriends, as Dr Popovich had pointed out to his father.

(He made no claim to being a superhero of any sort, but the analogy still held.)

He knew that simply because they were friends, simply because he cared about her, she already had a target on her back.

Everyone else he loved did too, and he'd made his peace with that as best as he could (he _couldn't_ stop caring, and didn't think he'd be able to live without them – he'd _survive_ , he wouldn't _live_ – nor would they let him pull away for their protection), simply vowed to protect them as best as he could, defend them with everything he had, including his own life.

But with the way that society venerated romantic love, if anyone were astute enough to notice what they already had between them…the target on her back might be a little bigger.

But he knew that the day she became his girlfriend (and while he wouldn't be texting Murdoc about it, he wouldn't insist that they keep it a secret, wouldn't hide her like some dirty little secret – because she absolutely wasn't, it wasn't fair to her or to either of them and their relationship, and they were both terrible liars anyway), it'd be magnitudes worse.

No matter what he'd told himself or anyone who asked, all the excuses he'd spouted…in the end, in the back of his mind, locked in that rattling box, _this_ was why he'd been dragging his feet.

Jack and his father just exchanged a glance. One that was full of meaning and understanding and a silent conversation all on its own.

His father spoke, seemingly making an effort to not sound didactic or condescending, though his voice was very firm. Nearly stern.

'When we get her back, safe and sound, Angus, you have to leave the choice to her. She knows the dangers, son.'

Jack picked up the train of thought.

'And trying to stay away from her just to keep her safe is gonna do nothing but hurt you both. Trust me, son. I know.'

There were many reasons why he'd left Diane and Riley all those years ago.

He'd been scared of what he was coming to mean to Riley, scared of being a father.

He'd been scared of their reaction to the violence he'd treated Elwood with.

And he'd been scared of the target he'd painted on their backs.

Mac looked at both of them, his father and his Obi-Wan Kenobi, for a long moment, before he nodded, a little hesitantly, but a nod nonetheless, and then pushed away those thoughts.

He had to focus.

Rescue Beth.

Deal with Murdoc.

Everything else, he'd deal with later.

* * *

In the war room, Matty turned to Jill and Riley, as Bozer kept his eye on his BFF as he strolled through downtown, messenger bag slung over his torso.

'Find everything you can on Nadia.'

Riley and Jill exchanged a glance, then nodded.

* * *

 **A SHOPPING STRIP**

 **LA**

* * *

Mac walked calmly down the street, away from the little grocery store where he'd stolen two pints of sour cream, which were now in his messenger bag.

(Murdoc had ordered him to do it.)

(The other items in his bag were a block of manchego cheese, a packet of corn tortillas and a mini panini press.)

(Murdoc wanted Mexican, apparently.)

(It only confirmed that the assassin was simply making him wait, forcing him to go through this ludicrous ruse, all the while knowing that the woman he cared more about than he was willing to admit – which given how much he'd admitted, at least to himself, was a lot – was Murdoc's prisoner.)

* * *

Jack and James, in an extremely ordinary-looking silver sedan, slowly drove towards the grocery store that was now down two pints of sour cream.

Mac had been running around doing Murdoc's bidding for an hour and a half now, and there were no signs that they'd been detected by the psychopath.

They exchanged a glance.

And thank God that was the case, they both thought, both from experience.

(Jack knew Mac. James was self-aware enough – despite what his son sometimes thought – to know most of his own faults. The Dr Popovich Incident had made it abundantly clear to him that going it alone down the rabbit hole was dangerous.)

(Mac had pulled him back, forced him to let him and Jack keep pace.)

(It was his turn to do the same for his son now.)

* * *

Three cans of kidney beans later, Mac's phone rang.

It was a video call request, from the number Murdoc had been using.

His heart sank.

He felt like a black hole was creating a bottomless pit in his stomach.

He answered, and it only got worse.

Murdoc and Beth were on the screen. Mac's arch-nemesis had the tac-knife out again, and was holding it to her throat with his right hand, pulling her head back roughly by her hair to expose her neck with his left.

He'd taken off the gag.

(So Mac could hear her scream, that sadistic gleam in Murdoc's eyes told him.)

'I'm _so_ disappointed…I did warn you, _no cheating_ , Angus…'

Slowly, Murdoc slid the knife down her throat, using just enough pressure to break the skin enough to draw out a thin trickle of blood.

It wasn't a serious injury at all. When it healed, it wouldn't even leave a mark.

Beth suppressed her natural urge to flinch or cry out, fortunately, even as she closed her eyes due to the (mostly psychological) pain. She'd held herself together admirably earlier, and seemed just as calm now. Mac was sure she was drawing on her medical training, the compartmentalising she'd mastered, to do that.

But it was a horrifying sight for him to behold nonetheless.

Just as Murdoc had intended.

He kept cutting, through the top of her shirt, only stopping after he'd cut through the first three inches of her soft, striped top.

Then, Murdoc pressed the point of the knife to the exposed skin there, drawing just a little more blood.

'Ditch Daddy and Dalton, MacGyver.' He smirked darkly, removing the knife and letting Mac see the gleam of blood on the tip. 'Or else.'

He hung up.

Mac swallowed.

Then, he pulled out his phone, opened it up, and removed a few choice parts. He threw those parts into a trash can, then wired the innards back together again in a slightly different way, and closed his phone up.

After that, he crouched down as if tying his shoelace, and removed the tracker from the Phoenix armoury he'd attached to his left shoe.

Then, he reached behind himself and pulled off the one on the inside of the bottom back hem of his jacket, the one that his father had placed, thinking that Mac wouldn't notice it.

He dumped both into the next trash can he encountered and kept walking as his phone chimed with another text from Murdoc.

* * *

Jack and James did a double-take, then glanced at each other with concern, when Mac's phone signal dropped out and, according to his tracker, he stopped moving.

James tapped his phone in a set pattern, activating the back-up tracker, which was apparently in the same spot as the other tracker.

Jack raised an eyebrow at him. James looked unapologetic.

'You know Angus.'

He tapped a couple more things on his phone, bringing up a Google StreetView image of the area around the trackers.

A trash can was very prominent in the shot.

Jack cursed.

'Damn it, son!' He raised a hand to his ear, tapping his earpiece. 'Riles, we've lost him…'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…I can't get into Mac's phone, he's locked us out.'

Bozer looked very confused.

'Wait, my man Mac managed to build some kind of firewall _you_ can't get through?'

Riley shook her head.

'Nope.' That would simply never happen. Mac wasn't _that_ technologically literate (at least in the _normal_ way – get him talking about the construction of Google Glasses or e-waste and its problems and he could go on for ages) compared to most people his age, having spent too much time taking his computer and phone apart when he was young instead of learning to use them. 'He made some hardware modifications.' Riley typed for a moment. 'But we got this off it just before he disconnected…'

Murdoc and Beth appeared on the screen, the doctor with a tac-knife to her neck, Murdoc speaking.

Jill gave a horrified gasp. Bozer swallowed as the video finished playing.

'Well, no wonder he ditched his back-up…'

* * *

 **UNKNOWN LOCATION**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Mac stood in front of the warehouse. It was within one of the search radii that Jill and Riley had established (he'd memorized them earlier), and he was confident that he'd correctly interpreted Murdoc's last cryptic message.

The door was also locked with a particularly, unusually secure lock, so that was another good clue.

Mac carefully inspected the lock, trying to determine if it was booby-trapped or not.

When it appeared to be nothing more than a lock (albeit a complicated one), he pulled a paperclip out of his pocket and re-shaped it, before getting to work picking the lock.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Jill and Bozer exchanged a glance as they tracked Mac through LA, knowing they were at least a couple of steps behind.

(They'd just seen him steal a cheese grater.)

(This game that Murdoc was playing was sadistic and cruel and also, admittedly, very creative and absurd.)

(That might just sum up Murdoc, full stop.)

(Jill vividly remembered reading the autopsy report for one of the government agents assigned to Cassian when he'd been in protective custody who'd been killed by a _pencil sharpener_.)

Meanwhile, Riley kept digging through the web, learning everything she could about Cassian's mysterious mother Nadia.

* * *

 **UNKNOWN LOCATION**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Mac pulled the doors open and looked into the warehouse.

There was no sign of Murdoc or Beth in his field of view, but the warehouse was huge, with two mezzanines, and the door was located at the very end, cut into one of the 'long' walls, so he could probably only see about a sixth of it from where he was.

He almost stepped inside, but thought better of it at the last moment, and instead pulled a can of beans out of his messenger bag and tossed it inside.

Gunfire erupted, and he quickly pin-pointed the location of the gun. It was clearly rigged up to fire automatically when it sensed something in a certain range.

(Murdoc really liked this type of rig.)

It was attached to one of the rafters, and appeared to be quite secure and sturdily put together. He couldn't put together some kind of lasso system, or try to break it with a strategically-thrown can of beans.

He pursed his lips, and looked around him. His eyes were caught by a drainpipe on the outside wall of the warehouse and a nearby dumpster.

An idea rapidly crystallizing out of the mass of thoughts in his brain, Mac headed for the dumpster and pushed it under the drainpipe. Then, he climbed up on the dumpster and started shimmying up the drainpipe, before leaning over and opening a window. He climbed through the window and moved carefully along the rafters until he reached the one with the gun rig, then made his way along that to the rig and cut some wires to disable the automatic firing system.

A message flashed up on the screen.

 **10 points to Gryffindor, Angus!**

He gave a very small, very grim smile (it could hardly be called one) at the little victory, and for good measure, disassembled Murdoc's gun.

Then, he made his way back along the rafters, climbed out of the window and back down the drainpipe, leapt off the dumpster, and walked into the warehouse.

* * *

Mac was halfway up the set of stairs when he suddenly stopped in his tracks.

Later, he would have no idea exactly how he'd worked this out.

(Jack would have called it a sixth sense. He didn't think it was that – he didn't believe in six senses, only five – but perhaps it was a finely-honed instinct, born from the fact that his brain processed far more than he was consciously aware of.)

Still, however the means, he stopped.

Very carefully, Mac grabbed a container of sour cream from his messenger bag and dolloped some onto the three steps directly in front of him (he couldn't reach any higher while keeping all his weight on the step he was currently on) with his Swiss Army knife. Then, he pulled out his handkerchief and spread the sour cream around, wiping off the grease that coated the stairs.

The removal of the grease that he now saw had been painted on revealed that several modifications had been made to those stairs, with the end result being that they were now structurally unsound, and would have given way under his weight, sending him falling from two stories up.

Mac pursed his lips.

He needed to find another way up to the top mezzanine.

He turned around and headed down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Maybe he could do something with the pallets that were lying around downstairs…

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Jill and Bozer exchanged a high-five.

'Got it!'

They'd tracked Mac to a warehouse inside one of Jill and Riley's original search radii.

Matty gave a grim smile and spoke into her phone.

'Jack, Jim, we're sending you a location now.'

* * *

 **NOW-KNOWN LOCATION**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Mac vaulted over the mezzanine railing, and was greeted by a very disturbing sight.

A grinning Murdoc was showing Beth (gagged again, with her hands still chained above her head, identical shackles around her ankles, a smear of blood down her throat, between her collarbones and halfway down her sternum) some photos on his phone that clearly weren't of kittens.

'…and she looked so _happy_ , and in that moment, I knew. I'd found my moment, the one I'd been waiting for, so I took the pillow from under her head and snuffed out her life as my son's began.' Murdoc grinned wider, turned to the terrified-but-still-fighting-to-not-show-it young woman. 'Beautifully poetic, almost Shakespearian, don't you think?'

Murdoc then looked very deliberately over at Mac.

Mac started unpacking his messenger bag, dropping the contents to the mezzanine floor with far more force than necessary.

'I've got your grocery order, Murdoc. Let her go.'

Murdoc made a disapproving clucking noise as he stared at the cheese grater, block of manchego, mini panini press, two cans of beans, avocado, pack of tortillas, two limes, bundle of cilantro and pint of sour cream.

'You're short a can of beans and a pint of sour cream.'

Mac rolled his eyes.

'Like you care. You obviously didn't intend for us to sit around and eat quesadillas together, Murdoc.'

Murdoc made another disapproving noise.

'So many assumptions, there, Angus! Breaking bread together is a time-honoured tradition. And quesadillas are delicious, don't you think, dear?'

He addressed that last question to Beth, running his tac-knife along her cheek, lightly enough that he didn't leave a mark, let alone draw blood. She managed to hold still, and then Murdoc flicked the knife. Her eyes widened in fear, in a flinch of sorts, but he'd done nothing but cut through the gag, which Beth spit out with extreme prejudice, glaring at the assassin all the while.

However, he'd turned his attention away from her and to Mac, staring at the blonde with an intense gaze full of dark, burning anger and an even darker obsession, though he spoke conversationally, as if he and Mac were talking about the weather, or quesadillas. He gestured at Beth with a sideways jerk of his head, tapping his holstered gun.

'I want to hear her scream when I finally, finally put one through that brain of yours…after extracting every last drop of pain, of course…'

Mac and Murdoc stared at one another for a long, long moment, both moving lightly on their feet, ready to pounce, both with anger and fury and _obsession_ in their eyes (righteous in one's, dark and sadistic in the other's).

For now, it was reasonably controlled, tightly leashed.

Then, at the exact same time, they lunged at one another.

* * *

Murdoc punched Mac, whom he had pinned to the railing, hard in the face, just as Mac kneed the assassin even harder in the stomach, causing Murdoc to recoil enough he could fling him off, before pressing the brief advantage he'd generated by grabbing the railing with both hands, jumping up and kicking the off-balance assassin hard enough that he was forced to stagger into the opposite railing.

Murdoc's eyes burned with fury as he recovered, and he pulled out his tac-knife, just as Mac seized the cheese grater from the floor.

* * *

Mac, bleeding slightly from a nick to the forearm, finally managed to catch Murdoc's knife with the cheese grater at the right angle in the right position, and pushed back hard at an upwards angle and twisted the grater, forcing the knife out of Murdoc's grip, and flinging it, along with the cheese grater, over the railing and down four stories to the warehouse floor.

Murdoc's eyes narrowed, and he head-butted Mac, sending him reeling.

* * *

On his back on the floor, Mac scrabbled for Murdoc's gun, in a holster on his thigh, at the same time using his own legs to fend him off and try and throw him off balance.

He didn't manage to grab the gun, but did manage to kick him hard enough in the side of the knee to get an involuntary yowl of pain from Murdoc and unbalance the assassin, giving Mac the chance to get up off the ground, grabbing a can of beans as he did.

* * *

Murdoc, his head ringing thanks to an expertly-thrown can of beans, pointed his gun and pulled the trigger.

Mac, somehow, managed to dodge out of the way by diving to the floor and to the right, grabbing the last can of beans off the floor.

As he did calculations in his head to work out exactly how he needed to throw this can of beans, he blocked out the sudden, burning pain in his left calf and the sensation of blood trickling down towards his ankle.

* * *

Mac had his nemesis, twice-stunned by cans of kidney beans, pinned to the back wall of the warehouse, Murdoc's toes barely skimming the floor, his weight held up by Mac's hands on his throat.

His grip tightened, as a maelstrom of thoughts ( _dark_ thoughts, said a voice in his head that was drowned out quickly) swirled through his mind.

It was like he was nothing but a spectator as Murdoc's face grew increasingly red and he gasped, futilely, for breath.

He hardly felt it as his hands tightened further.

(Later, he'd look back and feel like it was someone else's hands, like he hadn't had control over them at all.)

He heard nothing but his blood roaring in his ears.

At least until something broke through.

Beth's voice, pleading and desperate and accompanied by the rattle of chains as she struggled against her bonds.

'…Mac, stop it, please! Don't do this to yourself… _please, Mac_ …'

The dark maelstrom of thoughts were drowned out by others, suddenly.

His hands felt like his own again.

He could distinctly feel Murdoc's throat between them.

There was a brief moment (no more than a couple of microseconds, surely) of acute, sheer horror.

What was he _doing_?

Then, he thwacked Murdoc's head hard against the wall, knocking him out, letting him drop to the floor, before pulling out his belt and using it to cuff the man's hands. (He restrained his first instinct, which was to go free Beth and get her out of here; Murdoc was too dangerous to turn his back to.) He crouched down, and used his shoelaces to tightly and firmly tie the psychopath's ankles together.

Once Murdoc was secured and all the weapons (or potential weapons) Mac could find had been tossed down to the warehouse floor four stories below, he got up and hurried over to Beth, immediately reaching up with a paperclip in hand to pick the locks on the shackles on her wrists.

'I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry…'

He couldn't quite manage to look her in the eye.

(He didn't need to look at the shackles to pick them open, but he did anyway.)

Beth waited for him to glance down at her, then locked eyes with him, tilting her chin up slightly, something fiercely protective in her eyes, like she was determined to protect him from himself, from the dark, horrifying, depressing thoughts in his mind.

'You have _nothing_ to apologize for, Mac. _Nothing._ ' She paused, voice growing a touch shakier, but not truly weaker, still full of strength. 'And I'm…I'm going to be alright.'

He finished freeing her wrists, and ran his hands along her arms, rubbing gently to try and help her circulation along.

(Her arms must have gone very numb by now.)

Then, utterly unbidden and completely unwanted, the memory of what he'd done with his hands (the sensation of Murdoc's throat being squeezed in them – the _life_ being squeezed out of him) just minutes ago came to mind, and he recoiled, letting go of her arms.

He _couldn't_ touch her, not with what he'd just done…

That same fiercely protective look in her eyes, Beth reached out with still rather stiff, pale fingers, wrapping them around his forearm, practically forcing him to make eye contact with her.

She squeezed his arm as best as she could, before letting go and pointing at the ground.

'Sit.'

She said it in her _listen-to-me-or-else_ doctor's voice, with just as much authority and strength in it as usual, back safe at the Phoenix, in the infirmary.

It was so unexpected that he made a face of confusion.

' _What_?'

Beth gestured to his left calf, which was still bleeding.

'You have a bullet graze that is really more of a gouge. It needs binding to staunch the bleeding, and you can unpick these…' She gestured at the shackles around her ankles, hands clearly far less stiff and numb. '…while I deal with it.'

He had completely forgotten about the bullet graze.

Now that she mentioned it, it _did_ hurt.

(That was an understatement.)

Mac sat down, as did Beth, the two of them facing each other so they could do their respective tasks at the same time.

Beth held out a hand.

'I need to borrow your Swiss Army knife, please.'

He handed it over, working the locks on the shackles with a paperclip. She used the scissors to cut a long strip from her ruined shirt to use as a makeshift bandage, then started wrapping it tightly around his leg.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…Almost nine years ago, Nadia Topalov, the twenty-nine year old only daughter of a Bulgarian Mafia boss was found smothered to death in a private Swiss chalet, along with a local nurse who'd been shot execution-style.'

Riley and Jill briefed Bozer and Matty on everything they'd found on Cassian's mother.

'The murders were never solved.' Murdoc was, of course, far too good to be caught by local police. 'It was assumed that it was mafia infighting gone wrong.'

Riley and Jill exchanged a look, before the former continued.

'But what's interesting is that Nadia wasn't involved in her father's business.' She tapped the screen and a certificate awarding Nadia Topalov a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Heidelberg in Germany appeared. 'She cut ties with him, became a doctor and worked in a Bulgarian hospital. One of her father's enemies paid Murdoc to kill her, because he never stopped caring about her.'

Jill tapped the screen and Nadia's bank account records appeared.

'He sent her a generous monthly allowance.' She paused. 'Nadia used it to buy essential equipment and supplies for her hospital.'

Bozer and Matty exchanged a glance.

It was pretty easy to draw comparisons. See similarities.

(Matty had hoped that Murdoc was lying, just messing with Mac, getting into his head.)

(But she knew that the best lies always had a grain of truth at the centre.)

(She just wasn't expecting that grain to be so large.)

Riley and Jill caught that look, and shared one of their own, before Riley tapped the screen.

A photo of a very pretty young woman with light brown hair and big brown eyes and a sweet, happy smile, wearing scrubs, appeared.

She had a distinct resemblance to someone that they knew very well.

Bozer's eyes widened and he looked horrified and disturbed.

'Oh my God…' He glanced at Matty. 'Do…do we have to tell them?'

(He asked as if he already knew the answer, but really, really didn't like it.)

This, coupled with what Murdoc had said earlier in that slimy video-call that made Bozer feel unclean having just watched it, was really, really disturbing him.

He couldn't imagine how badly it'd bother Mac and Beth.

Matty just nodded, looking not-unperturbed herself.

'They need to know.'

* * *

 **NOW-KNOWN LOCATION**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

James and Jack, both holding their weapons at the ready, ran up the stairs (James had come up with a work-around for the three structurally-unsound ones) just as Beth finished bandaging Mac's calf. James immediately went to secure Murdoc, while Jack hurried over to Mac's side as the blonde tossed the shackles that'd been around her ankles away as far as he could with extreme prejudice.

Maybe that was the trigger, the assurance that she was definitely safe now.

Maybe it was the fact that Mac no longer had any pressing need for medical care (his various bruises and scrapes and the nick on his forearm could wait). He didn't need her to be a doctor any longer.

Maybe she'd simply reached the limit of her strength of will.

Maybe it was a combination of the three.

But whatever the cause, at that moment, Beth burst into deep, wracking sobs.

Mac immediately scooted over to her, shrugging off his leather jacket and wrapping it around her shoulders, as Jack crouched down beside her.

With a glance at his partner's bandaged calf, followed by a significant _look_ at the younger man, the Texan gently scooped her up, cradling her to his chest and speaking gently, softly, reassuringly.

'Shh…it's okay, kiddo. It's okay. You're safe now, we've got you, Jack's got you…let's get you out of here…'

He started walking over to the stairs, Mac walking behind them with a slight limp.

The blonde made eye contact with his father when he reached the top of the stairs. The older man just nodded once, before gesturing with his head towards Murdoc, then at Jack, who was carrying Beth down the stairs.

'I'll take care of him. Go, son.'

He left the _she needs you more_ unsaid.

After a few milliseconds of the MacGyvers just looking one another in the eye, a silent conversation, a silent understanding, passing between them, Mac just gave a little nod back, and hurried down the stairs as fast as he could.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

In the infirmary, Jack, Bozer, Riley and Mac sat around Beth's hospital bed.

(She was being treated for shock. Mac was also under treatment, but refused to stay in his own bed – despite Dr Farnham's orders _and_ Beth's – and had compromised by sitting still with his injured leg up on another chair.)

(He was also holding Beth's hand, which Jack and Bozer were under strict unspoken orders from Matty not to mention – she'd glared at them before she, Jill and James had headed off to deal with the fallout that Murdoc had generated.)

Riley, a rather grim, unhappy expression on her face, like she wished she didn't have to do this, turned her laptop around.

'This is Cassian's mother, Nadia.'

Mac and Beth stared at the information on the screen – Nadia's medical school certificate, the police report of her death, her father's identity…and the photo of her in her scrubs.

Jack spoke up as soon as he saw Nadia's photo.

'Riles, are you sure this ain't another one of Murdoc's creepy mind-games?'

Riley nodded.

'Jill and I triple-checked.'

Bozer didn't think he'd ever seen his BFF so horrified, so utterly, totally disturbed and sickened.

Still, because he was _Mac_ , he immediately glanced over at Beth with concern.

She looked very nauseous.

With his free hand, Mac grabbed the sick bag on the 'nightstand' next to her bed, and handed it to her, and a moment later, she let go of his hand and retched into the bag.

Mac grabbed a bottle of lemon-lime Gatorade that Dr Farnham had left next to the sick bag, opened it and handed it to her to sip when she finished emptying her stomach. He tied off the bag, put it back on the nightstand, and started rubbing her back.

(Bozer looked like he really, really wanted to say something. Riley kicked him in the shin before he could.)

After a quarter of the bottle of Gatorade, Beth took a deep breath and spoke, her voice initially very shaky, growing stronger slowly.

'It's statistically inevitable that coincidences occur. This is probably not the most improbable of coincidences, I mean, statistically, brown is the most common of all hair and eye colours, there are millions of medical professionals and I'm sure if you looked at all the people that Murdoc has killed, only a reasonably small percentage would actually fall in love with anyone, so…'

She gave a helpless little shrug.

This really wasn't something that could be explained away.

It was just one of those uncanny, improbable coincidences.

And Murdoc, being Murdoc, had taken it, weaponised it. Made it creepy and disturbing and horrifying and haunting.

* * *

 **MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

That night, after debrief, Mac, Beth, Jack, Riley, Matty and James sat around the fire-pit, all sipping tomato soup.

(Jill had been invited over, of course, but she'd declined to go and snuggle with her boyfriend for a dose of oxytocin instead.)

(Alex had shown up to pick her up from work with a pint of Ben and Jerry's and Indian takeout.)

Bozer, wearing his Kiss the Cook apron, walked out onto the deck with a plate of grilled cheese sandwiches, which he passed to Riley. The hacker took one, then passed it along to Jack, who took one and took a massive bite out of it, before passing it to Mac. The blonde took one absent-mindedly and glanced at Beth next to him. She was staring into the fire and cradling her half-drunk soup in her hands. He passed the plate of sandwiches over her to Matty on her other side, then split the sandwich in half, nudged her gently and handed her half of the grilled cheese, waggling it encouragingly.

(The young doctor looked much better now than she had in that warehouse in her cut, bloodied shirt with a smear of blood down her throat and chest, or in a hospital bed at the Phoenix, nauseous and creeped out to all end, now that she'd had a shower and had some more colour in her cheeks, had bandages over the cut and was wearing the yoga pants and T-shirt she kept in her Phoenix locker for working out in the gym, with one of Mac's flannels over the top.)

(Still, she was unsurprisingly still dealing with the fallout of her really terrible day.)

Bozer gratefully took the half-sandwich that Riley offered him when he picked up the empty plate and headed back towards the kitchen, devouring it in three bites, earning a look of disgust from the young woman, which he ignored as he bustled back inside.

He had a whole casserole dish of luxuriously rich and comforting mac'n'cheese to take out of the oven.

* * *

Practically as soon as they were done eating, Matty and James got up to leave.

They had a lot of work to do.

(Murdoc was Murdoc, after all.)

Before they left, though, Matty made a point to catch Beth when she left the bathroom and headed back out to the deck.

'You did a great job, Doc. You're strong.'

That made Beth give a little smile (Matty didn't give praise lightly, that was for sure), and her boss held out her arms for a hug. Beth crouched down, smile widening a little, and Matty hugged her, patting her back gently.

Meanwhile, Mac and his father unloaded their armfuls of dirty dishes in the kitchen. When the dishwasher was full and running, James turned to his son.

He gestured with his head, rather subtly, towards Matty and Beth in the living room, before speaking, obviously making an effort to not sound condescending.

'Remember what I said, Angus.'

Mac glanced over at the two women as well, who were now talking and smiling about something, their heads close together.

Then, he looked back at his father and nodded, before holding out a hand to him. His dad took it, and they clasped hands as Mac took a half-step closer to his father, patting him on the back, an action repeated by the older MacGyver.

It wasn't quite a hug, but it was more than a handshake.

Progress.

* * *

Beth smiled up at Bozer as he passed her a mug of his super-special, secret-recipe hot chocolate (made with that block of 70% dark Belgian chocolate he'd been saving for a rainy day). He smiled back at her, then passed a mug to Jack and one to Riley, before sitting down next to the hacker and taking a long draught of his own mug of hot chocolate.

Wordlessly, Mac started passing out s'mores.

(He'd made a whole stack, mostly to keep his hands busy.)

* * *

An hour later, Beth was fast asleep on the deck, curled up underneath Mac's leather jacket, her shoes off and placed neatly by her ankles.

Mac adjusted his jacket slightly to cover her more optimally when she curled up a little more tightly, apparently cold, ignoring Jack and Bozer's waggling eyebrows.

* * *

A few minutes later, Bozer and Riley headed up to the attic to grab the air mattress that Bozer and Mac had bought years and years ago (by unspoken agreement, she, Jack and Beth were staying the night at Mac and Bozer's), and Jack was very carefully picking Beth up, trying not to wake her.

(She really needed the sleep, after the ordeal of her day.)

She stirred a little when he shifted her, but seemed to realize, even asleep, that she was in safe hands, so settled back into a deep sleep.

Jack made for the living room, intending to put her on the couch, but Mac opened the French doors that led from the deck to his bedroom instead, walking over to his bed and pulling back the covers.

That made Jack smile, soft and fond and gentle, as he turned around, walked into Mac's room and set her down carefully on his bed.

Mac pulled the covers up over her in a way that could only be described as tender, before walking outside, grabbing Beth's shoes, and placing them by his bed.

Jack smiled a little wider, walking back out onto the deck and into the kitchen to grab a pair of beers from the fridge.

When he turned back around, two opened beers in his hands, his partner was sitting by the fire-pit again, facing the French doors that led to his bedroom (which were now closed) but seemingly trying not to stare at them.

(Or, more accurately, trying not to try and stare through them.)

Jack sighed internally.

He was a little worried about his partner.

One of Mac's worst fears had come true today.

(Heck, one of the worst fears of any covert operative had come true today.)

(Not to mention, it'd only been a week and a half since The Ghost had targeted the Penas for the exact same reason as Murdoc had taken Beth today – to hurt Mac. To get to him.)

(In Mac's mind – _because_ of him.)

He wouldn't lie, he was a little concerned that Mac might decide to reject one of the best things that'd ever happened to him, simply because of that.

A little smile, hopeful and soft and fond all at once, came to his face as a voice in his brain pointed out to him that Beth was very stubborn, very patient and had an uncanny knack of making Mac listen to her and see reason.

(She could keep him – and just about any other Phoenix agent; most of them were terrible patients – in the infirmary and cooperating, after all.)

They'd be alright.

(And hey, if they weren't, he could get the gang together and they'd stage an intervention.)

(Or just lock them in the evidence locker together; it took Mac ages to break out of that.)

* * *

 **MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISON**

 **(REALLY, REALLY MAXIMUM SECURITY)**

 **LOCATION: CLASSIFIED**

* * *

Clad in an orange prison jumpsuit, Murdoc lay back on his small prison bed, a grin on his face.

He closed his eyes and laughed, a haunting, horrifying sound, losing himself in memories.

That night in Moscow, how their bullets had struck the mark at the exact same time, how _resplendent_ she'd looked in her black Kevlar body armour…

The bottle of vodka they'd shared after they'd agreed to share the fee for the hit…

What had happened afterwards, one thing leading to another…

How utterly beautiful she'd looked covered in blood after skinning a man alive, that satisfaction, that grin on his Cookie's face…

And the moment she'd handed him their son, half him, half her…

(How Cassian had turned out to be so _good_ and _sweet_ when his parents shared a singular passion for homicide, he had no idea.)

(In fact, considering what his Cookie was like, even ignoring her homicidal tendencies, the fact that Cassian was anything near _nice_ was astounding.)

Murdoc laughed again.

And MacGyver and his little sweetheart and their friends had no idea.

Oh, there was a cursory resemblance of sorts between Amber and the young doctor.

Slim build, brown eyes, brown-ish hair, though Amber's had more, well, amber in it…but he doubted MacGyver would ever see it.

Amber had something, a fire, a darkness, a _passion_ that Angus' sweet little thing was the antithesis of…

But it had been so, so much fun, messing with them…

Thinking about how utterly disturbed and bothered and creeped out they'd been, would have been when they 'verified' his words as the 'truth', was going to keep him toasty-warm at night.

He grinned.

* * *

AN: This was another one of the very early eps planned out (the four-ep arc of SecDef to Grandpa, Past to Future, Heart Medication to Bomb and Mac to Murdoc was kinda all put together to lead to this as a climax, thematically), and I really hope you guys liked it. Poor Mac, and all of his friends/family as a result, live very dramatic lives! Originally, Nadia was supposed to actually be Cassian's mother (though the real Nadia bore no resemblance to Beth and wasn't exactly a stellar human being herself – think the 'Francesca Moretti' persona that Cage had in the Azerbaijani casino episode), but I decided to scrap that and bring in Amber when Murdoc + MacGyver + Murdoc aired.

When I initially planned this out months ago, I did debate about how angry I should make Mac at Murdoc (which got a lot easier to decide since he has since threatened to kill him in canon for similar reasons as in this story), and, especially, at his father. There are definitely still a lot of things left unsaid between them, but I hope you guys found that depiction to make sense.

There is an episode tag for _Detours_ for this ep (the very first episode tag I planned out!). It should be up on Tuesday. Here's the summary:

Oxytocin, tag to 3.21, Mac to Murdoc. The night after her kidnapping, Mac and Beth take care of each other, share some comfort and make a promise or two. 'I will defend you with everything I have.' 'I am not a woman who chooses easy or safe.'

And here's the press release for the next episode, which is the season finale!

3.22, End to Beginning. Mac and Beth's first date is interrupted by a bomb threat. Murdoc might be behind bars again, but he didn't go quietly. Mac and Jack must deal with the assassin's nasty surprises. Meanwhile, Bozer tries to help his BFF up his romance game.

Thoughts on 3.09, Specimen 234 + PAPR + Outbreak: This was a very classic ep in the sense that it used a lot of what I think a lot of fans think make the show great – Mac and Jack's bromance and banter, with Bozer added into the mix, an absurd/silly opening gambit, several skits/silly things happening (choosing what to get for lunch, Leanna cleaning the fridge and Jack's reaction, Mac's prank at the end, the running zombie apocalypse thing), lots of Mr MacGyver's science class, and something really sweet and heartfelt in the B-plot with Billy and Riley. I enjoyed it a lot, but also don't think it was incredibly memorable or 'special' if that makes sense? (I feel that 3.07, Scavengers + Hard Drive + Dragonfly was a better example of this type of ep, in all honesty.) Don't get me wrong – it was a great ep, and a nice 'palate cleanser' after the high drama of the last ep.

Other _MacGyver_ news – George Eads is leaving! :( Honestly, this could be a death knell for the show if they don't handle it really, really well – particularly since Jack has these really close, paternal relationships with Mac and Riley; he can't just up and leave them. I really, really hope that he doesn't leave the Phoenix in a fit of pique after fighting with Mac or something...

However, I'm going to hope they can come up with a way to handle it well (after all, I thought the show would never recover after the Thornton-is-Chrysalis-and-Nikki-is-good mess, and they did). My personal favourite is Jack-is-injured-in-a-career-ending-way-saving-Mac's-life-and-must-retire-leading-to-him-renewing-his-relationship-with-Diane, which, while removing him from the day-to-day of the show, allows Jack to be mentioned frequently, maintains his relationship with the family off-screen and leaves the door open for George Eads to guest star (which given his reason for leaving, he might be open to).

With Jack leaving, they're also going to need a replacement!Jack. I will be very angry if they try to instantly replicate the bromance with a stranger, but think there's some good potential there. My money is on Ethan being replacement Jack – his established relationship with Matty would bring him into the family instantly by proxy. More left-field candidates would be Charlie Robinson (good established bromance – of a slightly different sort - with Mac, I wouldn't be upset if they got into bromancy-banter instantly) and James MacGyver (though how they'd explain away him being in the field all the time, I don't know). Even more left-field candidates would be Billy Colton (Matty offers him a job, he leaves the Coltons for Riley) and Samantha Cage (finally recovered from her injuries, Cage actually does come home from visiting her sister). An extremely left-field candidate would be Caleb Worthy from Jack's old Delta team (he's younger than the others, I think, and is established as being very skilled and very brave, having integrity and honour, being trusted by Mac and Co. and needs a job?).


	22. End to Beginning

AN: Thoughts on 3.10, Matty + Ethan + Fidelity, at the end of this chapter, with spoilers.

* * *

 **MACGYVER'S FAVOURITE BOWLING ALLEY**

 **(YOU'RE SURPRISED OUR BOY HAS A FAVOURITE?)**

 **(REALLY?)**

 **(WAIT 'TILL YOU HEAR ABOUT HIS BOWLING ALGORITHM)**

 **LA**

* * *

'…That's the _fifth_ time you've achieved ten strikes in a single game of bowling? The _fifth_?' Beth whirled around, which made her skirt swish around her calves. (It was navy-blue with a border of old-fashioned milkshakes – the kind with whipped cream and a cherry on top – at the bottom, and was _adorable_.) She stared at Mac for a moment, with just a touch of disbelief on her face (the kind you had when you witnessed something highly improbable – and impressive – with your own two eyes), before smiling and shaking her head a little, looking impressed. 'You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say you were an alien or a superhuman.'

Mac smirked, tucking his hands into the pockets of his favourite leather jacket for a moment.

(His grandfather had always insisted that a gentleman dressed like the best version of himself for a date with a lady.)

(Mac had hence resisted all attempts by Bozer to force him into a tux. Apparently, he looked really good in a tux.)

(It clashed horribly with the grease under his nails.)

'I _could_ be.'

That made her snort and raise an eyebrow at him.

'With the _exact same physiology_ as a normal human?'

With a smile, he held up his hands in defeat.

'You've got me there.'

* * *

 **MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

Riley parked her car halfway up the driveway, raising an eyebrow at Bozer, who was planting a large rosebush with several red roses on it in the middle of his and Mac's front yard.

(Bozer had a bit of trouble with not crossing boundaries.)

(Riley got that he was happy that Mac and Beth had _finally_ gotten their act together. They _all_ were. None of them were still completely sure _what_ had passed between them the night of her kidnapping – despite Jack and Bozer's attempts to find out – but she'd somehow managed to convince Mac that what they could have together was worth the risk to her safety.)

(In hindsight, how could they possibly have doubted that Beth would eventually persuade him and hence started planning out the intervention?)

(She could persuade Mac to stay in the infirmary and _behave_ , after all.)

(Though, Riley got the sense that Jack and Bozer were a little sad that they didn't get the chance to lock them in the evidence locker together.)

(The rosebush, now that she thought about it, was probably a product of Bozer being really happy that Mac and Beth had actually gotten together…and needing to channel his enthusiasm and energy for the evidence locker plan somewhere else.)

She got out of her car, and crossed her arms, calling out to him.

'Seriously, Boze? Seriously?'

Bozer finished patting down the soil and picked up a watering can, gesturing to the rosebush.

'I'm just trying to help my BFF up his romance game economically! Do you know how much roses cost nowadays, Riley?'

To be fair, he had a point about the cost of roses.

To some eyes, he also had a point about Mac's romance game.

(It was, like many things about him, more than a touch weird and nerdy and dorky with too much science in it.)

(Still, Beth obviously really liked him – and presumably his romance game – that way.)

(She was very curious and excited about Mac's bowling algorithm, according to the group chat that she, Riley and Jill shared.)

(Riley really liked a good algorithm, but even she thought that a _bowling_ one was a touch too far…)

(Bozer claimed that that was only because she'd never bowled against Mac, who was apparently inhumanly good at it.)

Jack poked his head out of the front door, and Riley raised an eyebrow at him, gesturing to Bozer with her head, as if to say, _you let him do this?_

(Jack's grasp of boundaries was better than Bozer's. Marginally.)

(To be fair, he tended more towards overprotective, rather than Bozer's inappropriate-and-slightly-creepy.)

(Seriously, in Riley's mind, she and her mom and probably Jill were the only people with a _normal_ sense of boundaries in this crazy little family.)

(Bozer was Bozer, and Jack was Jack. Cassian was a kid, so he was allowed to be a little too curious and a little tactless. Matty knew everything, although she was at least discreet and unobtrusive. When Mac went into mad-scientist or Mr-MacGyver's-science-class mode, everything from manners to boundaries to minor laws like those against petty theft left his mind. In doctor-mode, Beth said some things that were really, really boundary-crossing outside of context, like the couple of times she'd ordered Mac and Jack to take all of their clothes off, immediately, after they'd gone for a dip in sewage or had a run-in with poison oak.)

(Jill was a _probably_ because, sometimes, she got a little too lost in science, too.)

Jack just shrugged, tossing some more peanuts into his mouth from the bag in his hands that he'd pinched from Mac and Bozer's pantry.

'Eh, you know how Mac's all like, mi casa su casa.' As usual, Jack's Spanish was awful. 'Your mom likes roses.'

Riley face-palmed internally.

How had this become her life?

* * *

 **MACGYVER'S FAVOURITE BOWLING ALLEY**

 **LA**

* * *

Hand-in-hand, Mac and Beth walked out of the bowling alley, deep in conversation, as they headed towards a nearby soul food restaurant that made great chess pie.

'… _you_ blew something up? _You?'_

Mac's tone was teasingly disbelieving.

Beth looked rather sheepish.

'Well, it was behind blast shields in my dad's workshop, and it was only a _small_ explosion…'

He gave a teasing little smirk.

'An explosion's an explosion, no matter how big or small.'

She shook her head fondly, before narrowing her eyes at him and poking him in the bicep.

'Did your grandfather say that to a combination of you, the police and Mission City High after you burnt down the football stadium with a small nuclear meltdown?'

He could only nod sheepishly.

At that moment, his phone rang, and with a quick apologetic glance at Beth and a sinking feeling in his stomach, he pulled it out of his pocket and glanced at the caller ID.

Matty.

He glanced over at her again, distinctly more apologetic.

Beth looked very disappointed, but just squeezed his hand in a reassuring, understanding gesture as he answered his phone on speaker.

(Matty definitely knew what she was interrupting.)

(At this point, Mac was 60% certain that the _entire_ Phoenix knew.)

'Sorry to interrupt, Baby Einstein, Lil' Doc, but Mac, we need you here ASAP. We've got credible intel that someone plans to detonate a bomb in LA, today.'

She didn't need to say that they were worried it might be The Ghost.

He'd dropped off the radar entirely again, but given that it appeared he was just as obsessed with Mac as Murdoc was, any bomb threats that could possibly have anything to do with Mac had to be considered as being his work.

Beth squeezed his hand again, then changed direction and started walking towards where he'd parked, tugging him after her for a moment as he tried to work out what he should do.

(He'd picked her up, just as his grandfather had taught him, not early and not late either.)

(It seemed very rude to send your new girlfriend home on the bus in the middle of your first date because you had to go to work urgently, so his brain had concluded that he should really call her an Uber and pay for it after getting Riley to vet the driver as quickly and as thoroughly as she could, but apparently, Beth had other ideas.)

(He used 'girlfriend' because at this point, that was what she definitely was. They both knew – and acknowledged - that this had already crossed the line into 'serious' and 'long-term'. This was a very, very belated first date, after all.)

'I'll come to the Phoenix with you; I can get a lift from someone there, or just wait until you're done.' She walked faster, smiling wryly. 'After all, you've got to get there ASAP…' She glanced over at him, smile shifting a little into something that he recognized easily. A smile that meant she was finding light in the darkness. '…Matty's wrath is even more terrifying than mine!'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Mac parked his Jeep in the Phoenix parking lot, turning to Beth as he pulled his keys out of the ignition.

'I'm really, really sorry about this…'

She just gave a little smile with a touch of fond exasperation in it, turning a bit in her seat and reaching out to take his hand.

'This is a part of life, for both of us. I hope it never happens, but one day, there could be a medical emergency, and I'll be the one who has to go into work urgently in the middle of something.' She smiled a little wider, squeezing his hand. 'We can pick up where we left off when you get back.' She said it like it was a promise. She got it, she really did. Understood and accepted that sometimes, she'd have to come second, their relationship would have to come second, and that that was no slight on her, didn't mean he didn't care about her like he should. Beth squeezed his hand again, letting herself look worried for a moment. 'Be careful.'

He nodded seriously in a way that also felt like a promise, and then, after one last squeeze, she let go of his hand, slipping into a far more professional headspace, and they walked into the Phoenix side-by-side, though not touching.

She headed towards the infirmary, though not before giving him one last look and little smile that was very much _Beth,_ not _Lil' Doc,_ something affectionate and proud and worried all at once in there.

Mac smiled back and waved, before putting his own game face on as he headed for the war room.

* * *

'…Union Station?'

Riley and Matty both nodded in response to Jack, as he and Mac studied the map in front of them, marked with the Phoenix's analysis of the intel regarding the bomb's location.

Mac pursed his lips, hands toying with a paperclip as he thought.

'It's a flashy, high-value target.'

The Ghost seemed to have given up on (or escalated beyond) subtle when it came to Mac.

Trying to blow someone up at his own house, while blowing up half of downtown LA at the same time, or setting up a huge, complex bomb at a military base _as a diversion_ while kidnapping said guy's mentor's widow and daughter to blow them up was about as far from subtle as you could get.

It did seem to fit the profile.

Mac tossed a ghost-shaped paperclip onto the coffee table.

* * *

Later, after the briefing was over and Mac and Jack had headed towards Union Station, Bozer and Riley sat down on the war room couch as Matty ducked out to make some phone calls.

The two of them pulled out their laptops and opened them to start digging, to try and find out who was behind this bomb.

(After all, they couldn't just _assume_ it was The Ghost with only circumstantial – at best – evidence.)

Riley happened to glance over at Bozer's screen as he opened his laptop up, and her eyes were immediately caught by the page that was open in his web browser.

Bozer was booking a trip to Paris for two.

A _romantic_ trip to Paris.

(At least, a stereotypically romantic trip.)

He was already on the payment page, and had apparently 'borrowed' Mac's credit card details.

Riley raised an eyebrow at him, and spoke very firmly. Sternly.

She pointed at his laptop screen.

'Bozer, _that_ is crossing a _lot_ of boundaries, is really inappropriate and is also kinda _illegal_.'

(Riley said 'kinda' because she was pretty sure Mac had _given_ Bozer his credit card details at some point in the past.)

(He was pretty lax about money and would happily pay for all of their 'family dinners' at restaurants if they let him, always happy to share with his friends-who-were-family, despite his grousing about Jack eating all his Honey Nut Cheerios.)

(He didn't have a mortgage, had gone to college on a free ride scholarship and was paid a lot of hazard pay.)

(Besides, Mac had worked out all sorts of clever ways to reduce his bills, never paid full price for any kind of household appliance and rarely had to take his car to the mechanic or pay for a plumber or an electrician.)

(Riley was also pretty sure that he had a few patents that generated decent royalties, but wasn't going to go snooping.)

Bozer, to his credit, blinked twice and seemed to realize exactly what he was doing, looking chastised.

Without a word, he closed the window firmly.

Then, he glanced over at Riley.

'Can we pretend that didn't happen?'

She stared back at him for a moment, expression still stern, arms still crossed, before her expression softened.

Bozer was a great BFF, really.

He loved Mac with all his heart and just wanted him to be happy.

 _That_ was why he crossed all these lines.

(His heart was in the right place. He just needed to use his brain a little more and restrain his natural, slightly-inappropriate-and-creepy tendencies.)

(Riley was pretty sure that Mac's crazy roommate/BFF/tenant would have scared Cindy off, as good as that duck l'orange had been, and as oddly impressive as Bozer's foil origami was.)

(Thankfully, Beth was used to Bozer, and understood his somewhat peculiar love language. And liked weird. And was already a lot more attached to Mac than Cindy had been.)

'Bozer, the best way that you can be a good bro and help Mac and Beth's relationship along is just to leave them be and give them some privacy to work it out.'

Bozer let out a little sigh, then nodded in agreement.

'Thanks, Riley.' He paused and looked a bit sheepish. 'I needed that kick up the butt, didn't I?' She nodded, as if to say, _no kidding,_ and Bozer continued, thinking out-loud.'I'll go invest in some really good earplugs instead…'

Riley made a face.

'Yeah…I don't want to think about that.' She paused, her tone growing more teasing. 'And seriously? _Paris_? You _do_ remember that Beth is terrified of flying and that that's where Mac's parents went on their honeymoon, right?'

(She was pretty sure James MacGyver had chosen Paris as it was the most 'objectively' romantic destination in the world.)

Mac had a thing about not being like his father.

Bozer made a face.

'Yeah, I really did _not_ think this through…'

* * *

 **PHOENIX CAR**

 **ON-ROUTE TO UNION STATION**

 **LA**

* * *

'…Gotta say, brother, the timing of this one _sucks_.'

As he stopped a red light, Jack glanced pointedly over at his partner.

Mac rolled his eyes.

Jack was fishing, obviously.

(He was also trying to get Mac's mind off The Ghost, trying to keep him from running down the rabbit hole too quickly for anyone to follow.)

(Mac appreciated that, he really did, but would have far preferred another topic…)

He settled for a neutral reply, though he had a feeling that trying not to feed the beast was hopeless.

(This beast ate everything.)

'Yes, yes it does.'

Jack glanced at him again. Mac remained stubbornly silent.

They remained that way for another thirty seconds and a change of lights, before Jack finally cracked.

'Come on, brother, you gotta give me _something!'_

Mac just raised an eyebrow and snorted.

'Since when have I been one to kiss and tell?' Jack glanced quickly over at him, smirking with raised eyebrows. Mac sighed. That'd been a poor choice of words, or a very unfortunate Freudian slip, though there was not any kissing (at least, not the sort of kissing that Jack would count – he didn't think Jack would consider the palm or cheek counting). ' _Metaphorically.'_

Jack would have pouted if he wasn't a grown man and a deadly covert operative with years of experience.

(As it was, he almost did.)

He had known far more about what Mac and Nikki got up to in their private time than he had wanted to.

(He was scarred for life.)

But that was because Nikki was _Nikki_ (confident and flirty and seductive, pretty shameless and definitely _not_ shy, and with the unique gift of being able to turn Mac's brain to mush – so that he forgot to lock the door to the van or his house or consider the fact that the gym or his living room or his kitchen or back deck probably weren't the best place for…well, you know).

On the bright side, this time, Jack didn't think he was going to need brain bleach.

(And if it did become needed, he had a feeling that if anyone could make brain bleach, it'd be Mac and Beth working together.)

* * *

 **UNION STATION**

 **LA**

* * *

'…Yeah, that intel was definitely good…' Jack glanced between his phone, on which he was updating Matty, Riley and Bozer, and his partner, who was crouching on the ground and inspecting the bomb they'd located in a janitor's closet in Union Station. 'Brother, how's that looking?'

Mac didn't glance up from the bomb, but sounded relieved when he spoke.

'I don't think it's The Ghost.' He gestured at the IED. 'Construction's pretty shoddy.'

The Ghost liked to hide bombs with other bombs, including more rudimentary ones, but Mac was quite sure that the bombmaker's ego would not allow him to construct something like this, which looked like the work of someone who was, at best, only a part-time demo-man.

(Besides, The Ghost would want him to know it was him. It was _personal_ between them.)

He got to work disarming it, as Jack grabbed the walkie-talkie they were using to communicate with local police.

'…continue the evac, but my partner's got it…'

* * *

Just after Mac cut the wire that'd neutralise the explosive, the mobile phone attached to the bomb that served as the detonator crackled to life.

Murdoc's face appeared on the screen.

He grinned in that disturbing way of his.

'Hello, Angus. What? _Surprised_?' Murdoc was back in prison, after all. This had to be a pre-recorded message. Murdoc made a disapproving noise. 'Planning, MacGyver, planning! It's _important,_ you know.'

The disturbing grin changed into a no-less-disturbing smirk, and then the screen went black.

Jack glanced at his partner immediately, not bothering to hide his concern.

That angry, worried, fearful, guilty look was back on Mac's face.

Jack took solace in the fact that the underlying _obsession_ wasn't quite so bad this time.

(Murdoc was behind bars, a voice in Mac's head reminded him. There was only so much that even Murdoc could do from there.)

(A memory flashed across his mind – Beth standing in front of him in his kitchen in the middle of the night after her kidnapping, her hands cupping his face, locking eyes with him.)

( _'I have my eyes wide open, and I understand what I'm seeing. I chose to train in emergency medicine. I went to Syria with MSF. I became support personnel for covert operatives. I am not a woman who chooses easy or safe.'_ )

(She'd said it like it was a promise, an oath, a vow.)

(That…that memory helped too.)

Mac grabbed Jack's phone without asking and spoke into it.

'Has Beth gotten a lift home, or is she still at the Phoenix?'

It was Bozer's voice that answered.

'She's still here, bro.'

Mac looked like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, and nodded.

'Tell her not to leave. And stay there, all of you.' He didn't need to specify who the _all_ was. Beth, Bozer, Riley, Matty, Jill and his father were 'family' in Mac's book, so had bigger targets on their backs than everyone else currently at the Phoenix. They all knew that. 'And Cassian and Diane-'

Jack cut him off, putting a reassuring hand on Mac's shoulder.

'Cassian's got an appointment with Dr Lau right now; they'll be at the Phoenix, brother.' Jack sounded like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, too. 'Matty-'

Their boss's voice sounded out from Jack's phone.

'I'll tell them to stay and that you owe her a pint of dulce de leche ice-cream.'

The expression on Mac's face shifted again, growing more focused, as Jack put his own game face on.

'Okay, obviously, Murdoc couldn't have planted this himself…' He'd been in prison for the last eight days, and had been busy for a minimum, by Mac's estimates, of two days beforehand planning Beth's kidnapping and executing it. '…so he has an accomplice or, more likely, accomplices on the outside…'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

'…We're looking for a band of mercs known as The Cobra Brothers.' Riley looked up from her laptop and at Mac and Jack on the war room screen. 'There's six of them, and they're all ex-Special Forces from several countries. They'll do pretty much anything for money.'

Bozer continued, looking his BFF in the eye, something sad and sorry and worried in his own gaze.

'Murdoc paid them to leave a nasty surprise or two for you if he didn't make a check-in call at a certain time.'

Mac just nodded grimly, his mind clearly racing at a million miles a minute. Jack didn't even have to glance at his partner to know that, and just spoke, addressing Riley and Bozer.

'You got a location on 'em?'

Riley and Bozer nodded, the hacker speaking.

'Sending it to your phone now.'

In the background, it appeared that Mac was already hot-wiring a car in the Union Station carpark.

Matty pulled out her phone and texted a contact at LAPD, plus Oversight.

(There was no way she was going to let Mac get arrested for grand theft auto, not today.)

* * *

 **SERVICE ENTRANCE OF A BUSY SHOPPING CENTRE**

 **(PRO TIP: NO-ONE QUESTIONS GUYS IN COVERALLS WHO LOOK LIKE THEY KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING)**

 **(REMEMBER: WITH GREAT POWER, COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY)**

 **LA**

* * *

'…sorry to crash the party, boys, but we're gonna need you to stop what you're doing and put those down…'

Jack, his gun in hand, looked down from inside the drop ceiling at the six Cobra Brothers. Three were busy setting up what looked like a system for dispersing poison gas or some kind of virus (hopefully not the zombie-apocalypse-starting type) into the centre's HVAC system. The other three were standing guard with carefully-concealed weapons.

The three guard mercs wasted no time, pulling out small firearms and aiming at Jack, who shot immediately as they moved their arms, taking one in the shoulder and another in the knee.

Meanwhile, there was a loud clattering sound as Mac, on the other side of The Cobra Brothers, pulled another drop ceiling panel aside and dropped a DIY smoke bomb into the corridor.

Then, there was a very loud thump as the blonde dropped down from the ceiling, using himself as a projectile and landing on top of the third guard.

Jack busied himself dealing with the three remaining Cobra Brothers, whooping as he took one out, just as Mac took down another with the canister his DIY smoke bomb had been in and a well-placed kick to the knee on his way to securing the gas/virus disperser.

* * *

A few minutes later, all the Cobra Brothers were secured, as was the device they were setting up (a chlorine gas dispersal system, it turned out).

Jack held the leader, securely cuffed around the ankles and the wrists, with all of his weapons removed, by the collar, his most intimidating face on.

'Any other nasty little surprises you set up for Murdoc?'

The leader, a man about Jack's age with a wicked-looking facial scar, just smirked.

'You really think I'm going to talk?'

Jack tightened his hand on the man's collar, but was interrupted by Mac before he could speak.

'He doesn't need to talk, Jack.' The blonde was holding a pair of thick hairs up in the tweezers of his Swiss Army knife. He appeared to have pulled them from an unconscious Cobra Brother's boots. 'Elephant hairs. We've got to get to the zoo.'

With that, Mac took off running for the nearest exit.

* * *

 **THREE HOURS LATER**

 **BEAUTY SALON**

 **JUST OFF RODEO DRIVE**

 **LA**

* * *

Jack was tired, grumpy and showing it in typical Jack Dalton fashion.

'…seriously, brother, we stink of elephant poo…' There'd been another bomb at LA Zoo, which Mac had made short work of. '...and we look like Oompa Loompas!' Murdoc had left one of his infamous gun rigs for The Cobra Brothers to set up just off Rodeo Drive. Mac and Jack had taken it out, but for some reason, Mac had decided that they were going to do it using, among other things, fake tan. 'Can't we take five…' He rubbed his partially-orange arm. The smear of fake tan refused to budge. The Phoenix's nerds had better have invented something that could get rid of this stuff. '…or ten to clean up? There's nothing here!'

Mac had been searching frantically through the beauty salon for the last fifteen minutes.

A crowd had started to gather.

(Jack thought he recognized a few faces from one of those gossip magazines.)

(He'd been really bored while waiting for his turn at the dentist.)

The blonde ignored him, not quite seeming to notice the crowd.

Jack sighed internally, then, knowing that he probably couldn't help Mac with his search (exactly what the parameters were, Jack had no clue, since Mac was now playing with trash and a bottle of nail polish), got to work on crowd control instead.

'Hey, folks, move along, move along, there's nothing to see here…'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

Bozer and Riley looked up as the war room door opened, and Jill entered, looking very determined with her laptop under her arm and a large cup of coffee in her hand.

(She'd been running support for the Edwards team for the last fifteen hours. They were now safely on the jet on their way home from Mexico.)

She gave them a small smile as she walked over to the spare armchair.

'I heard you need a hand?'

Bozer and Riley definitely needed a hand.

Mac was not convinced (and frankly, neither were they or Matty or Jack, no matter how much Jack was grousing) that Murdoc's nasty surprises numbered only four.

(The Cobra Brothers had had a week, after all.)

However, they were stuck.

Matty was currently working her magic, but they needed to keep working the digital-and-money-trails angle too.

Bozer and Riley smiled back at Jill, Bozer reaching out to bump his fist to hers as she opened up her laptop and started typing as Riley started filling her in.

* * *

Matty walked into the interrogation room where the leader of The Cobra Brothers was chained to the table.

The man actually snorted, _laughed_ , as she walked in.

Matty took that anger inside her and channelled it into something productive.

She strode up to the chair opposite him and sat down, crossing her hands on the table, speaking with false civility, the underlying threat in her voice obvious.

'Hello. I've got some questions I need you to answer.'

The Cobra Brother leaned back in his seat.

'I wouldn't talk to your attack dog; why would I talk to you?'

Matty leaned forward, her terrifying Matty-the-Hun expression on her face.

'Because _I'm_ the big, scary dog here.'

* * *

As she, Jill and Bozer typed away, chasing down any and every potential lead or scrap of intel, Riley's brow furrowed as she scrolled through a line of code that was in a program used by Murdoc and The Cobra Brothers to communicate, and for Murdoc to wire them money, without detection.

It bothered her, far more than it should have.

For more than the reason why she was digging through this code line-by-line.

(The sophistication of the encryption on the money transfer and communications and the fact that it did not match any other known code - and thus could have been stolen - told them that Murdoc was probably working with someone else, a real pro black-hat.)

(They didn't think Murdoc was _that_ good with computers, and there were no records that any of The Cobra Brothers had this level of skill either.)

But she couldn't quite place why it was niggling her.

Riley put it aside, let it run in the back of her mind, as she kept trying to track down this black-hat.

* * *

 **SANTA MONICA PIER**

 **LA**

* * *

In the dark, Jack lay on the evacuated pier, holding on to his partner's ankles as Mac hung off the side with a fishing rod in hand, trying to unhook a key part of yet another explosive that'd been planted under the pier by The Cobra Brothers.

They were up to five bombs, two averted gas attacks and one of Murdoc's gun rigs.

It'd been a really long day that was stretching into the night with no sign of ending anytime soon.

Mac was (at least to Jack) obviously getting further and further down the rabbit hole in his mind, answers growing more and more curt, that _obsession_ in his eyes burning brighter.

Jack, in turn, grew more and more concerned.

* * *

As they sat in the car, bomb neutralized and having updated the team back at the Phoenix with everything that they (mostly Mac) had found at the pier, Jack pulled a few cereal bars out of the med-kit and very firmly held one out to his partner.

'You know I'll tattle to Beth if you don't eat a thing, brother…and take it from someone with a lot more experience with the ladies; you don't wanna get on her bad side, especially not for something silly, and especially not now! You gotta savour the honeymoon stage, man, before she starts organizing your fridge and covering your couch with throw pillows!'

Mac managed a weak snort that was probably meant to be a laugh and an eye-roll as he unwrapped his cereal bar.

'A, whether you tattle or not, Beth would find out, so your threat is ineffectual.' He still wasn't quite sure _how_ she did it, but she always knew when he hadn't slept or eaten. 'And B, you know, I'd kept myself fed and alive for twenty-seven years before we met.'

 _To be fair, Boze deserves a lot of credit for the former, and Jack deserves some too. And Charlie. And Al._

 _I'm self-aware enough to know that sometimes I forget about things like eating if I'm caught up in something._

 _As for the latter…well, he's far from the only one, but Jack gets a lot of credit for that, too._

 _But I'm making a rhetorical point here._

Jack unwrapped his own cereal bar, raising it to Mac in a weird toast of sorts.

'And here's hoping she'll do it for twice as long.'

Jack was firmly of the opinion that being reminded of the good things in life, the _very_ good things in life, was an excellent method of pulling Mac back from the edge of the abyss, hauling him out of the rabbit hole.

It worked for just about everyone else, after all.

Mac was special, real special, but he was still just a man.

Sometimes, some people (including Mac) needed reminding of the fact, and Jack was always happy to help.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

It finally, finally hit Riley sometime around 9 pm at night as they dug into a late dinner of gyros that Alex had dropped off before he'd headed home after spending the last four days in Mexico.

She finally realized why that line of code was bothering her.

She'd seen that exact line (with all the little variations that made up each hacker's unique 'signature') before.

In fact, it'd only been a little more than a week ago.

Aggressively finishing the last bite of her gyro and ignoring her fries, Riley reached for her laptop and started typing at a ferocious pace.

* * *

Together, in the Phoenix breakroom, Diane, Beth and Cassian finished reading the very last chapter of _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets._

Cassian let out a massive yawn as they did, which made both women smile fondly. Diane tugged the covers on the makeshift bed Beth had put together on the breakroom couch a little higher.

'We'll start _Prisoner of Azkaban_ tomorrow.' Cassian pouted, and Diane's look grew more firm. He sighed dramatically, but nodded obediently and lay down, burrowing into the covers. After a couple of seconds, he seemed to remember something, and sat up again, turning to Beth. 'Thank you for reading with me, and for the bed.' Beth smiled back at him, ruffling his hair fondly, before rearranging it back to how he liked it. 'And I really like your skirt!'

Beth's smile widened.

'Thanks!' She rearranged the covers slightly for him as he lay back down again. 'Goodnight, Cassian.'

She got up to give Cassian and his surrogate mother a moment of privacy, and Diane ducked her head to press a kiss to the boy's forehead. He smiled sleepily up at her in response as she started to sing a lullaby softly.

(At eight, he was a pretty big boy, but it'd been a tough couple of weeks for the poor kid, resilient as he was.)

(And a mother's lullaby was always comforting, no matter how old one was.)

'…hush, my darling, don't fear, my darling, the lion sleeps tonight…'

* * *

Riley stared at the multiple overlapping windows open in front of her, before pressing a couple more keys to send them to the big screen.

The appearance of the documents made Bozer and Jill, the former instructing the latter on how to make the world's best gyro sauce (a mix – in a very specific ratio – of the various sauces that came with gyros) while they ate, as well as Beth (who was making a paperclip chain while sitting cross-legged on the floor, lower body completely covered by her milkshake skirt) and Diane and Matty, who were talking in hushed voices in the corner, all look up at the screen.

As they processed the information, Beth looked visibly relieved.

Matty glanced at Riley and Jill (who looked shocked and seemed to be kicking herself at the same time – Riley didn't blame her, she felt much the same) and gave a nod that was a clear order.

Jill stuffed the last handful of her fries into her mouth, looking a bit like a chipmunk, and started typing, just as Riley returned to her laptop.

Nadia Topolov was a real person, and she had been murdered by Murdoc in a Swiss chalet by smothering nearly nine years ago.

And she was the daughter of a Bulgarian Mafia boss and her death had been a result of Mafia infighting.

But Nadia was not the paragon of virtue they'd thought she was.

Nadia Topolov had never studied medicine, nor had she rejected the family business.

In fact, she'd been right in the thick of it.

There were two other key pieces of information.

One, she looked nothing like Beth.

(Tall, blonde and blue-eyed with a statuesque, icy beauty was a long way from short, brunette, brown-eyed and sweet-looking.)

Two, she had not recently given birth, nor had she ever been pregnant.

Bozer voiced the obvious once he'd dislodged the mouthful of fry that'd gotten stuck in his oesophagus with some help from Beth.

'Then who's Cassian's mom?'

Riley paused in her typing, looked at the others in the room, and gave a helpless shrug, hating the fact that she had to do that as she did it.

She had no idea.

All of her digging had come up blank.

There wasn't even a tiny, little hint of a clue that might lead them to Cassian's real mother.

It was Matty who spoke up.

'We will keep trying to find out…' The way she said that, glancing at Diane as she did, made it seem as if it was mostly addressed to her. Cassian was full of questions, including about his biological family. Questions that were hard to answer, and not just because his father was a homicide-obsessed psychopath. Sometimes, it wasn't a matter of not _wanting_ to tell him the truth (though they always _did_ tell him, even if it was a somewhat sanitised, gory-and-disturbing-details-removed version – it'd been agreed upon as very important), it was that they didn't _know_ the answers. '…but right now, it isn't a priority. We have to find Murdoc's computer expert.'

* * *

 **ALL-NIGHT TRUCKSTOP DINER**

 **OFF THE SAN DIEGO FREEWAY**

 **OUTSKIRTS OF LA**

* * *

Jack got out of the bathroom to find his partner with his phone out on the table, sipping at his cup of coffee and looking like someone had taken a tonne off his shoulders.

(The _obsession_ in his eyes seemed a little less intense, too.)

The Texan smiled as he sat back down, gesturing to Mac's phone.

'Good news, brother?'

The blonde nodded.

'Yeah. Matty, Riley, Jill and Boze's findings support that bomb having been the last of Murdoc's surprises.' Mac had disarmed a bomb just beside the San Diego Freeway that'd have caused, at best, mass traffic chaos (and at worst, killed innocent commuters with a well-timed explosion followed by consequent car crashes) about an hour ago. 'And…' He picked up his two discarded sugar packets and started methodically folding them. '…he faked the stuff with Nadia. She had no medical training, bore no physical resemblance to Beth and could not have been Cassian's mother.' He gestured to his phone. 'They're chasing down the hacker he hired to lay the false trail now.'

Jack nodded.

That could take a while.

He assumed someone who could fool Riley and Jill, even after they'd triple-checked, was going to be _really_ good at hiding their tracks, but he had faith in them.

He reached out and clasped Mac's forearm.

'I'm real glad your arch-nemesis with the crazy, creepy obsession with you ain't also crazy-creepy-obsessed with your girl 'cause she looks like his dead baby mama.'

Mac gave a little smile at that, even as he arched an eyebrow at the phrasing.

'Me too, Jack.'

The older man made a face, looking horrified.

'I…I sound a little like Boze, don't I?' He raised a hand to his face, feeling around as if expecting his features to have changed to match Mac's best friend's. 'I'm spending so much time with him I'm turning into him!'

Mac sighed internally in a very fondly exasperatedly way, shaking his head.

 _There are so many flaws in Jack's logic that I don't even know where to start._

 _Still, as ridiculous as it sounds, I'm pretty sure that Jack's often amusing, though also exasperating, frequently flawed logic is part of the reason why I'm still a reasonably mentally healthy and entirely functional human being, so…_

Mac pointed at his partner.

'Watch what you say; that's my best friend you're talking about…'

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

As one, Riley and Jill looked up from their laptops, looks of triumph on their faces. The blonde woman spoke.

'Murdoc's hired hacker's handle is Janus_the_Great, real name Joseph Creek.'

Riley continued, glancing over at Matty.

'I'm sending his address to Mac, Jack and Gonzales.'

Gonzales's tac-team was on standby in the garage, ready to go at a moment's notice.

Matty nodded, pulling out her phone to make a couple of calls.

'Good work.'

* * *

 **JOSEPH CREEK'S BUILDING**

 **LA**

* * *

'…seriously, brother, hate to have to say it, but you really gotta lay off Boze's cooking!'

Jack whisper-yelled at Mac, who was standing on his shoulders in order to disable the key part of Creek's security system (which he was sure had been given some upgrades recently, judging from the marks on the stucco near it).

The blonde rolled his eyes (Jack was always complaining about his skinny butt, after all), as he waved the device that looked a bit like a credit card scanner that he'd built a couple of minutes ago at the security system, before dropping the device a little too close to Jack's head for his comfort ('Hey, watch it, man!'), taking out his Swiss Army knife and getting to work prising the security system's core apart and cutting a few choice wires.

Thirty seconds later, Mac raised his hand to his earpiece.

'Gonzales, you're good to go.'

Jack made a (loud) sound of relief and unceremoniously dropped Mac to the ground.

(Not _too_ hard, of course, but hard enough to make a point.)

The blonde got up off the ground, refusing to rub his stinging backside for the sake of his dignity, and shot his partner a _look._

* * *

Mac and Jack took the stairs two at a time and at a run in order to catch up to Gonzales and his team just as they got into position outside Creek's front door.

Gonzales counted down silently on his fingers, and then, on his signal, one of his men kicked down the door.

* * *

Creek's eyes darted from the heavily-armed and clearly professional tac-team in front of him to his desk drawer.

Gonzales spoke, a clear warning in his tone.

'I wouldn't do that if I were you, son.'

Slowly, Creek put his hands up.

(Clearly, he might be dangerous in cyberspace, but in reality?)

(Definitely not.)

One of Gonzales's men quickly moved to cuff him and search him for weapons as the others all kept their guns trained on him.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Riley and Jill, both carrying backpacks with their rigs and equipment on their backs, arrived at Creek's apartment.

They waved at Jack and Mac and Gonzales, who were video-calling Matty back at the Phoenix on Mac's phone, then headed straight for Creek's 'lair' (he called it that, apparently, according to the sign on the door) and started getting into his computer systems.

* * *

Riley and Jill exchanged a horrified, worried glance.

This chain of nasty surprises via The Cobra Brothers was not the only contingency plan Murdoc had prepared.

Far from it.

Riley pulled out her phone and called Matty, glancing with concern at Mac in the living room.

(He was rummaging through Creek's things, bickering with Jack.)

'Boss? We have a problem.'

Matty's face grew graver and graver as Jill and Riley explained what they'd found.

'Can you disable, destroy or disrupt them?'

Riley and Jill both nodded confidently.

None of the other plans were anywhere near triggering.

One, for example, appeared to be triggered by Christmas 2019.

(Of course, Murdoc was a Grinch.)

Riley spoke up.

'We might need some real-world help…'

There would likely be arrests that had to be made and the like.

Matty nodded.

'That won't be a problem.'

A lot of people owed her favours.

And a lot of people owed Jim favours.

* * *

 **PHOENIX FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS**

 **SOMEWHERE IN LA**

* * *

As Mac and Jack walked through the Phoenix carpark, heading back to HQ for debrief (Riley and Jill were on their way back too, but were at least ten minutes behind), Jack continued to glance concernedly at his partner, as he had been doing whenever he could while they'd driven back.

Mac had that angry, fearful, worried, guilty and _obsessed_ look back in his eyes.

He'd had it ever since Riley and Jill had told them all about Murdoc's other would-be nasty surprises.

Jack didn't like that look one bit.

It made him worry for the younger man who was the closest thing Jack would ever have to a son.

So, he blocked Mac's path when the blonde reached for the door handle that led into the Phoenix Foundation proper.

Mac sighed, expression shifting into something that clearly said, _are we really doing this now?_

Jack nodded, something in his eyes clearly saying back, _yeah, son, we are._

The older man reached out and put a hand on the younger's shoulder.

'You got him good last week, brother. We stopped his back-up this time, _and_ took out all the back-up to the back-up.' He paused, and gestured between them, and then to the Phoenix as a whole. 'We can take him.'

The _we_ was very important.

(Mac was not alone. He was never, ever alone, hadn't been even when Murdoc had forced him to go alone.)

He had his whole family behind him, plus the Phoenix Foundation, and his many, many friends.

(Jack had no doubt that if asked for some reason or the other, a huge range of people from Charlie Robinson and Carlos to Smitty and Frankie and Mac's engineering buddies from MIT to Penny Parker and Mr Ericson to SecDef would come and help Mac in any way they could.)

(He might have been a bullied, lonely child with only four friends in the whole world – including his science teacher and his grandfather – but Mac had a knack of winning people over and making friends.)

Jack looked him dead in the eye for a long, long moment.

As long as it took to sink in.

After that long, long moment, Mac nodded, letting go of that anger and fear and worry and guilt and _obsession_ as best as he could.

He knew that obsession and going down the rabbit hole, especially alone, would destroy him if he let it, turn him into someone he didn't want to be.

So he couldn't let it happen.

He was fortunate enough that he had friends, a family, who would help, _wouldn't_ let him become that man, not without the fight of their lives.

Mac gave a small smile and reached out and clasped Jack's shoulder in return for a moment.

Jack smiled back at him, nodded, then squeezed his shoulder one last time before stepping aside so they could walk into HQ.

* * *

After debrief and a thorough shower (they no longer stunk, but were still somewhat more orange than usual in certain spots), Mac and Jack walked into the Phoenix breakroom.

The sight that greeted them hit Mac like a punch to the gut, albeit in a very positive way.

Cassian was sitting at the breakroom kitchenette's peninsula, nibbling on apple slices as he excitedly explained a drawing (it was _Harry Potter-_ themed; he'd apparently sorted them all into Hogwarts houses) to Diane, who was listening intently with a soft, fond, proud little smile that she often directed at Riley. Beth was standing behind the counter, smiling affectionately and sweetly too, making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She was still wearing the navy-blue wrap blouse she'd been wearing on their date, and since she was standing at the end of the peninsula, he could see the edge of her milkshake skirt peeking out too. She carefully cut the sandwich into two triangular halves when she was done, then nudged the plate towards Cassian. When he noticed (it took a subtle head movement from Diane), the boy beamed at the doctor, who beamed back at him.

Suddenly, Mac realized he'd somehow stopped walking and was standing in the breakroom doorway staring at the tableau before him.

Jack's voice sounded out next to him, partly teasing, partly affectionate and partly wise. Mac turned to his partner, seeing a matching expression on his face.

'Does funny things to a man's heart.'

 _I can't disagree with that._

Mac just nodded, turning back to the scene before them. Cassian was now happily eating his sandwich, while Beth was taking more slices of whole-wheat bread out of the bag on the counter and setting them on plates. She looked over at him and Jack, a smile full of affection and relief on her face.

(There was a bit of amusement in it too, when her eyes caught on the orange patch on Jack's forearm or Mac's neck.)

Then, she gestured at the slices of bread in front of her, expression shifting a bit more towards _Lil' Doc._

'Would you like grape or strawberry jelly on your PB&Js?'

Apparently, the fact that they were _having_ PB&Js was non-negotiable.

Mac smiled, wider and fonder than the question or even the fact that his girlfriend was making him (and his partner) sandwiches should cause.

(He couldn't help it, and he didn't care anyway.)

'Strawberry, please, Beth.'

Jack rubbed his hands together.

'Porque no los dos?'

Beth smiled a little wider, and shook her head in a way that made them both think she'd probably anticipated their answers as she got to work putting the sandwiches together.

(Jack's fondness for eating weird things in sandwiches, as well as disgustingly old sandwiches, was well known.)

(Mac had gone on a very long rant about the evils of artificial grape flavouring a couple months back.)

As she spread peanut butter liberally on the bread, Mac and Jack finished making their way over to the kitchenette.

Jack wrapped an arm around Diane's waist and leaned over to kiss her cheek affectionately, before starting to try and persuade Cassian that the only way to eat a PB&J was with both grape _and_ strawberry jelly.

(The boy made a disgusted face up at Jack in response.)

Mac, meanwhile, grabbed the strawberry jelly jar and opened it, passing it to Beth, who gave him a grateful little smile in return and started spreading it on the sandwiches.

* * *

 **MACGYVER'S RESIDENCE**

 **LA**

* * *

As Bozer and Beth cooked dinner, giving Cassian a couple of lessons along the way, and Riley and Diane set the table, while Jack took a shower using Mac's all-purpose-stain-removing-shower-gel to get rid of the remaining fake tan, there was a knock on Mac's front door. He excused himself from his conversation with Matty and went and opened it, after checking the peephole, to reveal his father standing on the other side.

He moved aside to let James MacGyver in with a smile of welcome, and his dad smiled back.

'All of the individuals involved in Murdoc's contingency plans have been arrested.' He and Matty had had to call in a few favours, which he knew Angus was well aware of and was likely partly responsible for his warm welcome. 'I called in a few other favours, and there are now at least two guards that I personally trust with my life rostered onto every shift at his prison. I've also personally swept his cell for bugs, transmitting devices and all other electronics. It was clean, Angus.' He paused, hesitated for a moment, before continuing. 'If you'd like another pair of hands and another brain to help with your security system upgrade…' It was inevitable, after this, that his son would upgrade everyone's security systems yet again. '…well, you have my number.'

Mac's smile widened a little, and after a moment's hesitation, he held up his arms and reached out and hugged his dad.

It was stiff and more than a little awkward and didn't last very long, but it was the first hug they'd shared in more than eighteen years.

It was progress.

James was smiling too when they let go, that soft, real smile that was still rare from him.

(But not as rare as it used to be.)

* * *

'…come on, everyone, I got dark chocolate, marshmallows, graham crackers, butterscotch chips, pretzels, peanut butter cups…' Bozer's arms were absolutely, utterly full of delicious junk foods. He gestured with his head towards the deck and the waiting fire in the fire-pit. 'Let's make some gourmet s'mores!' With an air of faux-casualness that fooled absolutely nobody, Bozer addressed his best friend. 'Bro, could you grab that blowtorch you tricked out last year?' He then glanced at Beth. 'Can you supervise and make sure he doesn't hurt himself? You know, fire, burns…bad.'

Riley took that moment to shoo Bozer out the door along with everyone else. Jack looked like he was going to make a comment, given the smirk on his face, but Diane shot him a _look_ and tugged him outside.

Left standing in the kitchen, Mac and Beth glanced at one another. After a moment, she spoke.

'You know, I used to expect secret agents to be subtle…' Her smile turned wry, teasing, and fond. '…then I met you guys.'

Mac nodded, just as wryly and affectionately.

'Yeah, they're never subtle and like any family, we're far too interested in and invested in each other's business.'

'Is that why there's suddenly a red rosebush in your front yard?'

Mac nodded a little apologetically.

'Yup. Boze, uh, struggles a little with boundaries.' He paused. 'Especially when it comes to my love life.'

That was said with great affection, but an awful lot of exasperation.

Beth smiled, and replied, with nearly as much exasperated affection in her voice, reaching out to tuck her hand into his.

'He loves you and wants you to be happy.' She was very used to Bozer and his ways by now, and knew that his heart was firmly in the right place. Besides, everyone else would remind him about boundaries. 'And for future reference, I much prefer yellow roses.'

Mac gave a little chuckle and nodded.

'Duly noted.' He paused, and glanced between the busybodies on the deck (Jack and Bozer appeared to be glancing back inside regularly, while Riley occasionally kicked Bozer in the shin, and Matty and Diane shot Jack _looks_ ) and her, a rather strange expression growing on his face. It was somewhere between smug smirk and besotted grin and shy smile. 'It does seem a shame to waste the fact we've got a moment's privacy…'

Beth smiled back up at him, somehow sweet and seductive and shy at the same time.

(It might be strange, but it was very _her_.)

'Well, I did say we'd pick up where we left off, but I wouldn't mind skipping forward a little…'

That smile-smirk-grin widening, Mac tugged her back a few feet further so that they were out of view of the peanut gallery, and then tucked two fingers under her chin to tilt her face up and leaned down a little to kiss her.

* * *

When they finally broke apart (oxygen was essential), Beth looked rather like the Earth had shifted a couple of feet underneath her.

(He probably did too, if how he felt was any indication.)

She blinked twice up at him and spoke.

'I think I have to revisit that superhuman hypothesis. How are you good at everything except charades and Pictionary?' Her eyes widened as her cheeks flushed further, and she clapped a hand over her mouth as a rush of smug male pride shot through him. 'That was really not meant to be out-loud…'

He chuckled and smiled affectionately, and leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead.

'I'm not much of a dancer or a singer either.'

That made her giggle, her cheeks still pink, and he leaned down to kiss her again.

 _Waste not, want not._

 _I do like to make the best of whatever I have, after all._

She went up on her toes and met him halfway.

* * *

Later, the whole family sat out on the deck, eating gourmet s'mores.

Cassian tossed marshmallows into Jack's mouth, both of them laughing like five-year-olds. Diane smiled indulgently and fondly at her boys, and thumped Jack on the back when it seemed that a marshmallow went down the wrong way.

On Diane's other side, Bozer regaled Riley with his ultimate s'mores recipe (it had _everything_ on it) and she gamely took a bite when he handed her the finished product.

Her eyes widened and she made a very happy noise, swallowing, before taking another large bite with gusto, then another, which made Bozer grin proudly.

Meanwhile, James and Matty watched the whole scene, something soft and fond and utterly honest and unguarded in both of their eyes. Matty nudged her boss and long-time friend, then looked at him as if to say, _I told you so._ His smile just widened ever-so-slightly in response as he nodded wryly.

At that moment, Mac finished roasting a marshmallow perfectly according to his marshmallow-toasting algorithm, and without seemingly thinking about it at all, placed it on the graham cracker than Beth held. She placed a piece of dark chocolate and a second graham cracker on top, squashed them together and then waited for sufficient heat to transfer from the marshmallow to the chocolate to start the melting process, before offering Mac a bite.

(Bozer snapped a photo to go with his and Jack's future Best Men speech.)

(Riley elbowed him in the side.)

(Neither Mac nor Beth noticed, or seemed to be paying any attention to anyone else for that matter.)

(At least, not until Jack made a loud choking noise.)

(Another marshmallow had gone down the wrong way.)

* * *

 _Don't worry, Jack did not choke on any confectionary._

 _And in Boze's defence, I don't see why I can't have two Best Men._

* * *

AN: *exhales a very long breath* And that's all, folks! I really, really hope you guys enjoyed this ride, and THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH for staying on it, and for all of your favourites/follows/subscriptions/reviews/comments. This has been even more of a labour of love than _Every End is a Beginning_ was, with how difficult and exhausting my Honours year was. As a result, I'm even prouder of this story, especially since I think this is a better story and that I've improved my pacing – each chapter in this story is roughly the same length (between 8000 and 10,000 words), whereas in _Every End is a Beginning,_ I think the longest was 16,000 and the shortest in the 6000s.

I do intend to eventually revisit this 'verse with a fic that mostly based on/centres around the romantic relationships established in this story and tells some tales that I've hinted at – like Mac's parents'.

However, my next project will be a Christmas fic called _My True Love Gave to Me!_ Here's the summary:

JPL engineer Mac attempts to woo his neighbour by doing the _12 Days of Christmas,_ MacGyver-style. Meanwhile, Jack and Diane discuss all the reasons why they shouldn't get back together, Riley tries to cheer up Bozer so this Christmas doesn't wind up _Last Christmas,_ and James MacGyver must find his way back to Mission City and his wife Ellen.

It's a fluffy, rom-com-type fic with lots of Team-as-Family, set in an AU with no Phoenix/DXS/precursors thereof, but is also very similar to canon, in the sense that the team have found each other and become family. As you can probably tell, it's based on four famous Christmas songs. It's mostly a Mac/Beth fic, with some Jack/Diane and James/Ellen, and a smidgen of (hopefully not creepy/entitled) Bozer/Riley. I hope to have it start posting on the 14th, with a chapter a day until Christmas.

Thoughts on 3.10, Matty + Ethan + Fidelity: I have a new favourite ep of the season, and my heart is broken. I really loved that one, especially the little conversations between Matty, Mac and Jack, and the flashback sequences telling Matty and Ethan's story. Those were all such beautifully touching moments, and I really loved the 'Ethan loves disco' element (it's those absurd little things that make this show fun, and they riffed off it really well to establish his character and his and Matty's relationship). I also really liked how they handled Ethan and Matty's relationship/situation (this may be an unpopular opinion?) – as Jack said, Ethan lived a different life for eight years, became a different person for eight years, and he did make it clear that it was the birth of his child that changed him from playing a role to being someone else (a good reason, methinks). The element of 'Matty talked him into taking the assignment' twisted the knife in my gut, but it was really nicely handled, and it makes her understanding, well, even more understandable. I think it came across as the two of them having been separated by the sacrifices they made for their country and for innocent people, which is tragically sad, but also means that neither of them are really to blame…My only gripe with the ep is that I feel that it should have been called 'Matty + Ethan + Sacrifices' (the team sacrifices their Christmas, Matty and Ethan hide their relationship so they can continue to serve, Mac chooses to save the janitor, Ethan outs himself to save Mac and the janitor, Matty thinks that Mac made the right choice, Matty convinces Ethan to take Dragonfly because he's better than anyone else they might send and they delay starting a family because of that, Matty and Ethan sacrificed their relationship in the end to take down S-Company). Honestly, I feel that better reflects Matty and Ethan's relationship's end than 'fidelity'.

Last week, I thought that Ethan would be Jack's replacement. Now – I'm not so sure. On one hand, the 'Ethan loves disco and is cool and sassy under pressure' and 'Ethan outs himself to save Mac and the janitor' elements made me think that they could be setting that up. On the other hand, with Matty letting him go and telling him to return to his family makes me think that trying to write him back in is too hard and won't happen. I suppose that either something happens to remove Ethan's family from the picture (they could kill them off, which is horrifically cruel, or Dina could leave him?), or his family has to move to the US (where they must live under new identities), and Ethan takes the job as Mac's partner on Matty's request after Jack's departure/retirement? (Which probably would have to lead to some really complicated moments and storylines that would make 'fidelity' very important…I mean, it's absolutely clear that Ethan and Matty are mature and respectful adults regarding their relationship, but it's also absolutely clear that they still have feelings for each other, so…)


End file.
